Masterbatches continue to show good growth despite softer demand of commodity plastics

Commodity plastics have not grown well during the first half of this financial year. In fact, figures indicate some negative growth. However, the second half of the year could bring about some moderate growth. The non-vinyl masterbatches sector continues to show at least 10% growth in 2002-2003 despite the lull in commodity plastics consumption.
Processors have found the advantages of enhanced dispersion and improved housekeeping at a very modest cost. The raffia sector still continues to be the most dominating sector consuming almost 25-30KT of antifibrillation masterbatch alone. Colour masterbatches continue to be the major component from the remaining 42-43KT. In fact, white and black colours together account for almost 32KT (22KT for white and 10KT for black). Other coloured masterbatches could account for almost 7-8KT. The additive masterbatches particularly used for BOPP film or even Polyethylene and PET film are expected to develop volumes of about 4KT. While the masterbatch for PE telephone ducting has not been able to maintain its growth in the last 2 years, the UV, cling, nucleation, stiffness enhancing additives masterbatches have grown quite well. The consumption pattern of masterbatches across various application sectors is:

The industry continues adding manufacturing capacities, since the entry barriers are quite low. In fact, the manufacture of antifibrillation masterbatch has been very widely spread across the country. While actual capacity of dedicated masterbatch manufacturing is quite difficult to determine, it is estimated that the total capacity is more than 175KT compared to almost 70KT consumption in 2002-3 financial year. There are several small-scale producers with one or two manufacturing lines. Some of them are quite happy to even utilize their capacity over 10-12 hours production in a day.
It is estimated that there are more than 200 producers of masterbatches out of which only 20-25 have capacity more than 1000T/year.

		Plastiblends with 15000T/year manufacturing capacity is undoubtedly the largest dedicated masterbatch producer.
		Plastichemix, Poddar Pigments, K K Polycolour and Clariant are some of the other large producers.

Some of the technically demanding additives as well as colour masterbatches are being imported. The most active international suppliers are Schulman and Ampacet. At the same time, some of the Indian manufacturers have started exporting the masterbatches to the Middle East/Africa region.

The industry experts feel very optimistic about the growth potential of masterbatches in India. While the opinions may vary but most of the experts feel that the growth would be at least a few percent higher than the growth of Polyolefins. The growth of masterbatches is linked with the Polyolefins, since they consume more than 85-90% of the total consumption of masterbatches in India.

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