In the last months, all the import – export companies around the world have suffered the exorbitant increasing in maritime transport costs, and how it has been more and more difficult to find available space on a vesssel, with a large number of containers stucked waiting for shipping date.
In addition, we have also seen many essential raw materials increasing their prices more than 100%. In fact, there are raw materials that are not even available on the market, or if they are finally, it is after considerable effort and a lot of patience.
The pigments sector, in which PROMINDSA operates, has not been immune to this. Due to this situation, even ASEFAPI (the Spanish Association of Manufacturers of Paints and Printing Inks) has provided the Ministry of Industry with a list of substances with the mentioned excessive prices.
The causes of this “Perfect Storm” are not entirely clear. The most frequently named ones are the huge demand for raw materials from China, which is fully recovered from the COVID 19 crisis, increases in oil prices, container shortages, plant closures … etc. We don’t really have a clear image of the situation, but what we do know for a fact is that companies need to make a great effort to mitigate this situation, optimizing their processes as much as possible and looking for alternative supply channels.
In the specific case of PROMINDSA, a mining company, with its own mines and factory, the suffered impact is considerably minor, due to 90% of our business operations come from our own natural iron oxides, therefore, the problems of raw materials supplying are minimally affecting our production.
Therefore, MICRONOX natural red oxides appear as a very good alternative to synthetic iron oxides, both to be used separately or to be blended with synthetic iron oxides to optimizing production costs.
Hereby you can find a link to a very descriptive article that, although focused on the US market, can be extrapolated to the rest of the world. Watch here.
