European tube industry feels the pinch of rising raw material prices
The recent increases in raw material prices and shortages in plastic materials have put the European flexible tubes industry under pressure.
Prices for aluminium and plastics have gone through the roof over the last 12 months (April 2020 – April 2021) by around 60 percent for aluminium and between roughly 75 to 90 percent for plastics such as HDPE, LDPE and PP. Moreover, general capacity cuts in the plastics industry, the rising demand for plastics in the quickly recovering Chinese and US economies and several force majeure cases declared by several plastic producers in Europe have already led to shortages of plastics used in tube production. On top of that, also food grade post-consumer recycled plastic materials are in short supply so that it is rather difficult to satisfy growing customers’ demands.
