PARSIPPANY, N.J., U.S.A. – March 1, 2011 – Faced with continued increases in the costs of raw materials and volatility in the global supply chain, Sun Chemical will raise prices on April 1, 2011 in North America by:

• 4 percent for SunLit™ Diamond, SunLit™ Intense and SunLit™ Exact sheetfed process color inks,
• 8 percent for all other sheetfed process color inks,
• 7 percent for all energy curable (EC) narrow web, tag, and label printing inks,
• 7 percent for all EC packaging printing inks, and
• 7 percent for all EC commercial printing inks.

Due to the global supply challenges associated with graphic arts raw materials, higher demand from developing regions, consolidation and capacity curtailment taken by the chemical industry, and the significant decline in refinery margins over the past two years, the ink industry continues to face significant increases in raw materials costs and supply instability.
 
Further consolidation in the supply base is expected in 2011 along with continued pressure for suppliers to alternatively sell key raw materials into other markets. The combination of these factors has led to elevated costs in almost every raw material category critical to the production of inks.
 
“Although it is impossible for us to totally change what is happening to the dynamics of our supply chain, at Sun Chemical, we continue to work extremely hard to control our own costs as well as work closely with our supply chain partners to curtail cost, but it has not been enough to offset the drastic raw material price increases we have seen this past year across all our product lines,” said Brian Breidigan, Vice President, Product Management Sheetfed, North American Inks, Sun Chemical. “We will continue to work closely with our customers to help them get the most possible out of their inks, and to develop new value oriented products and services that can help them grow their business despite this challenging marketplace.”