Hamburg: Orion Engineered Carbons, a global Carbon Black manufacturer, has recently announced its plan to raise the Specialty Carbon Black prices, including all grades manufactured in the European region. It has also been declared that the price changes would be communicated to the consumers individually and would primarily depend upon the manufacturing process, product, and location. The assessed price of Carbon Black Hard Grade N220 for this week, i.e., the week ending on 23rd, is USD 2745/MT FD Hamburg, indicating stagnancy in the Carbon Black market.

Orion is making these price shifts to ensure that it would provide the consumers with quality-rich and differentiated specialty Carbon Black, especially when Europe is facing an energy crisis and political instability. The organization also made a declaration about investing in new products and solution development to meet up with the market demand globally. It has been mentioned that these price changes would become valid from 1st October 2022 or as mentioned in the contract.

Ever Since Russia cut off their Carbon Black exports to Europe, European nations have been struggling for Carbon Black supply, especially at a reasonable cost. Although Europe is now importing Carbon Black from South Korea and the USA and manufacturing it at its plants, neither the imports nor the domestic productions are available at a reasonable price. Hence, the market value of Carbon Black has consistently been rising, except in the last week when it became stable owing to weakened demand from automotive industries, which countered the supply shortages and kept the prices at their current value.

As per ChemAnalyst Anticipations, “Keeping Orion Engineered Carbons announcement in mind, the prices of Carbon Black would surge in October. However, it would come down again in November owing to lesser procurements as consumers would be waiting for destocking season in December to get the goods at a much lesser value.”