Friday, October 31, 2014

Chemical and Material Shortage Alert – October 2014

The purpose of this blog is to identify chemical and material shortages reported on the Internet.  The sources of the information reported here are primarily news releases issued on the Internet.  The issue period of the news releases is October 2014.

Section I below lists those chemicals and materials that were on the previous Chemical and Material Shortage Alert list and continue to have news releases indicating they are in short supply. Click here to read the September 2014 Chemical and Material Shortage Alert list.

Section II lists the new chemicals and materials (not on the September alert).  Also provided is some explanation for the shortage and geographical information.  This blog attempts to list only actual shortage situations – those shortages that are being experienced during the period covered by the news releases.   Chemicals and materials identified in news releases as only being in danger of being in short supply status are not listed.

Section I.   Chemicals and materials that continue from September to be reported as in short supply are: bricks (United Kingdom); zinc (global)

Section II.   Shortages Reported in October not found on the Previous Month’s List

Cement: Minnesota; production not keeping up with demand
Solar Panels: global; production not keeping up with demand
Water: Brazil (San Paulo); draught
Ferro-silicon: Brazil; production not keeping up with demand

Reasons for Section II shortages can be broadly categorized as: 

1.  Mining not keeping up with demand: none
2.  Production not keeping up with demand: cement; solar panels; ferro-silicon
3.  Government regulations: none
4.  Sources no longer available:  none
5.  Insufficient imports:  none
6.  Supply not keeping up with demand:  none




Wednesday, October 22, 2014

2013 Approximate Sales and CAGRs for 10 Food Additives

An intensive Internet search was conducted to find information providing 2013 sales data and compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) for food additives.  Several market reports were found providing such data.

The chart below shows the sales and CAGR data that were found for 10 food additives, identified in the chart.  The data should be considered to be approximate estimates.  For some data, different sales and CAGR estimates were found, suggesting difficulties in exactly determining the actual data.

The CAGRs are expected annual sales growth rates for the next five years.  Again, the CAGRs should only be considered to be approximate, with many factors potentially altering the growth rates.

The data is presented by marketing research companies in information on the Internet while promoting in-depth reports on the food additive industry that the marketing companies are selling.   Because of the efforts made by these marketing research companies in preparing these reports, which cost several thousand dollars, it is likely that the estimated sales and CAGR data are as accurate as can be found on the Internet, or elsewhere.

It seems to me that knowing the relative sales and sales growth magnitudes of these 10 food additives could be useful in company decision-making.  Also, knowing that the total sales for all 10 food additives in 2013 were approximately $43 billion, if the estimates for the sales data are reasonably close, should be useful.




Thursday, October 9, 2014

Electronics Segments at Japanese Chemical Companies

Several Japanese public chemical companies have separate business segments representing what these companies consider to be their businesses associated with “electronics”.  Companies that report “electronics” segments in their annual reports include:  Asahi Glass; Asahi Kasei; Nagase; Mitsubishi; Sanyo; Shin Etsu: Showa Denko; Sumitomo; and Tokyo Ohka Kogyo. 

From the annual reports of these companies, the following are some of the products and services that the companies lump into their electronics segments:

abrasives
battery materials
CMP slurries
color filters
digital camera filters
display device materials
electrolytes for aluminum electrolytic capacitors
encapsulation materials
flexible display materials
glass-related materials and processing
hard disk media
high-grade chemical management services
high-purity chemicals
large-scale integration (LSI)
light emitting diode (LED) materials
liquid crystal display (LCD) materials
magnetic sensors
optical products
organic lighting materials
organic photovoltaic models and materials
photo mask materials
photo resist materials
polycarbonate sheets and films
quartz products
rare earth magnetic alloys
recording media
resins
semiconductor materials
solar cell materials
surface treatment materials
touch panel materials

Also from the annual reports and the financial data on the electronic segments, for all the companies, the average compound annual growth rate (CAGR), over the last three years,  for electronic segment sales was a negative one percent.  The total electronics segment profit, for all companies, as a percentage of total electronics segment income was thirteen percent (658 billion yen total electronics segment income/5,156 billion yen total electronics segment sales).

Perhaps one of the strongest sectors in the Japanese chemical industry is the sector that supports Japan’s electronics industry, an industry generally recognized as a world leader.  And, therefore, probably the chemical company segments (for example the segments discussed above) supporting Japan’s electronics industry are also world class.    A good example of this is the recent 2014 Noble Prize in Physics awarded to two Japanese researchers (and also to an American researcher) for inventing efficient blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources. 


The above financial results for the chemical companies’ electronics segments are not impressive, and are in-line with a less than robust Japanese economy.  However, the segment's technical capabilities are probably equal to the best in the world, and best in Asia.  With Asian future economic growth, and its demand for electronics, if Japan’s chemical companies offering chemical support can tap into supporting this demand, these companies’ futures should be bright.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Chemical and Material Shortage Alert – September 2014

The purpose of this blog is to identify chemical and material shortages reported on the Internet.  The sources of the information reported here are primarily news releases issued on the Internet.  The issue period of the news releases is September 2014.

Section I below lists those chemicals and materials that were on the previous Chemical and Material Shortage Alert list and continue to have news releases indicating they are in short supply. Click here to read the August 2014 Chemical and Material Shortage Alert list.

Section II lists the new chemicals and materials (not on the August alert).  Also provided is some explanation for the shortage and geographical information.  This blog attempts to list only actual shortage situations – those shortages that are being experienced during the period covered by the news releases.   Chemicals and materials identified in news releases as only being in danger of being in short supply status are not listed.

Section I.   Chemicals and materials that continue from August to be reported as in short supply are: iron ore (India); bricks (United Kingdom)

Section II.   Shortages Reported in September not found on the Previous Month’s List

Zinc:  global; mining not keeping up with demand.

Reasons for Section II shortages can be broadly categorized as: 

1.  Mining not keeping up with demand: zinc
2.  Production not keeping up with demand: none
3.  Government regulations: none
4.  Sources no longer available:  none
5.  Insufficient imports:  none
6.  Supply not keeping up with demand:  none