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Since 1996, the global color pigments market has been impacted by significant growth in production and consumption in Asian markets, particularly in China.
In U.S. dollar terms, the value of the world inorganic color pigment market appears to have increased significantly in 2007 for three reasons:
- Most importantly, the effect of the falling foreign exchange value of the U.S. dollar
- Volume growth in the consumption of inorganic color pigments
- Generally rising inorganic pigment prices
The largest-volume inorganic color pigment is synthetic iron oxide. Worldwide, the top producers of synthetic iron oxide pigments in 2007 are LANXESS (formerly Bayer), which holds roughly half of the world’s market; Rockwood (including the recently acquired Elementis); and Toda Kogyo.
The most important challenges for pigment producers will be to cope with the continuing globalization of the business, the maturing markets in some applications and regions, the oversupply of commodity pigments (keeping prices depressed), and some significant changes in health and environmental regulations, particularly under Europe’s REACH legislation; however, much of the market impact is a continuation of existing consumption trends.
The following pie chart shows world consumption of inorganic color pigments by type:
The primary drivers of consumption of inorganic color pigments are paints and coatings, building materials and plastics. Worldwide markets for inorganic color pigments are expected to grow at slightly less than GDP growth rates during the next five years. In Japan, overall inorganic color pigment consumption is expected to decline slightly, while growth will be stronger in Europe and the United States. In Asian countries other than Japan, primarily China and India, consumption of pigments will grow significantly, particularly in construction materials and paints and coatings.
Consumption of iron oxide pigments will grow strongly in 2006–2011, with continued demand from the construction industry, the largest market for iron oxides. One of the two major classes of chrome pigments—green chromium oxide—will experience moderate growth. Consumption of the other major class—lead chromates (primarily chrome yellow, chrome orange and molybdate orange)—is expected to slow in growth overall and decline in some regions, as will the consumption of cadmium pigments. Health and environmental concerns about heavy metal–containing pigments and increased competition from organic replacements are adversely affecting overall consumption of lead chromate and cadmium pigments. However, in a few regions such as Asia and Oceania, consumption of cadmium pigments, while smaller than in the United States or Western Europe, is still increasing gradually. Worldwide consumption of complex inorganic pigments will experience some growth in volume, aided by their partial absorption of the markets lost by cadmium and chrome pigments.
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