Over the last year, the market has experienced more allocations than I have seen within my 3 decades experience. In the past I have seen sharp price increases, and I have witnessed several shortages, and delivery delays on account of resin allocations coming from plastic resin companies. This is the very first time I have seen all these issues at the same time.
PTFE (TFE) and Kynar both are on allocation.
The two of these resins are in short supply. The PTFE Sheet product PTFE (TFE) and Kynar-PVDF manufacturing requires a mineral called Fluorspar that is mined in Mongolia and China. The worldwide requirement for this mineral has risen significantly, as well as the supply has tightened. PTFE materials have high heat resistance, excellent chemical resistance and really low co-efficient of friction (slick) and is utilised throughout tons of purposes from non-stick fry pots and pans to ptfe tape for personal use. This mineral is actually the essential raw material within the manufacturing of fluoropolymers, fluorolubricants and many refrigerants.This increase in demand combined with general shortage of raw materials is responsible for a dramatic price increase (almost double over the last year), shortages, and we expect these two factors to keep at it in the near future.
The next standard that you are going to want to utilize when you are shopping around for a plastic sheet vendor is to look around online. The web is the best area to obtain pricing quotes and to look at a firm’s track record. You can also make use of any type of classified ads that are released in newspapers. This is going to assist you get a better suggestion of what you are going to be spending for a certain amount of sheets.