International. The prices of many raw materials used in the paint industry and imported from Asia have not yet stabilized, according to coating manufacturers who complain about the shortage of some products, in addition to the well-known case of titanium dioxide that was also affected by the natural phenomenon.
One of the scarcest materials these days is the pearly gloss pigment Xirallic, which is used in automotive applications and is produced 100% by the company Merck at a plant in northeastern Japan that was affected by the earthquake, which delayed orders until the first of September.
The shortage of this product affected companies such as Toyota, which saw some of its internal processes delayed due to lack of materials for the manufacture of certain coatings.
Another of those affected was the Japanese firm Kansai Paint Co., which had to replace this pigment with another, generating some uncalculated extra expenses: "It is impossible to replace pigments of an existing paint because its color can never be reproduced exactly. That means we had to create a new painting," said the company's voice carrier, Hitoshi Matsuda.
According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, Merck's profits with this pigment were about US $ 442.2 million in 2010, which implies a significant drop in revenue for the company that, however, has avoided pronouncing on it.
To that is added the movement in the market, since the fall in the production of this pigment is an opportunity for other suppliers of raw materials for automotive paints, such as PPG, DuPont and Basf.
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