One of the biggest challenges facing our industry is the ever increasing price of resin. As we all know, the lion’s share of plastics are derived from feedstocks based on oil and natural gas. These commodities continue to set price records and there is no end in sight. The trouble for the resin buyer is the lack of price transparency for most resin families. There is no public market with the exception of a few commoditiy plastics listed with the London Metals Exchange.

Over the years, I have taken hundreds of calls from our customers asking us to track resin price as part of our database. We have looked at this challenge from every angle and have not come up with a solution. Recently, a colleague passed along a short tidbit on a pricing situation for metals. It made me think that we could possibly put something similar together for plastics where we might empower the resin buyer with useful information for negotiating resin contracts. Have a look at the article and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear more on this topic.

- Mike Kmetz, IDES President

Plastics Marketplace Update!