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Ube Industries to Revise Price of Diphenol Products

September 9, 2010

TOKYO, September 9, 2010_Ube Industries, Ltd. today announced that it will again implement a price increase for diphenol products including catechol and hydroquinone in Japan and overseas effective for shipments on or after October 1, 2010. This price revision follows an earlier increase in prices implemented on June 1, 2010. Ube Industries will initiate negotiations with its customers regarding the price increase.

The decision to increase diphenol product prices is due to further upswings in the price of phenol (a principal raw material), which has hit an historic high owing to tight global supply and demand. Anticipating that phenol prices will continue to hover at a high level after October, Ube Industries has decided to pass on the subsequent increase in production costs to product prices. In this context, the rationale for again increasing prices is attributable to ongoing pressures on the supply-demand balance of diphenol products themselves.

Minimum Price Increases for Catechol and Hydroquinone

Products for Japanese market Increase by 10%
Products for Asian market Increase by 10%

Date of Price Changes

Shipments on or after October 1, 2010

Catechol is used as a raw material for products such as fragrances, agrochemicals, and monomer polymerization inhibitors, and demand in each application is flourishing. Hydroquinone is used for polymerization inhibitors such as acrylic acid ester, as well as photographic chemicals and agrochemicals. Notably, demand for hydroquinone is growing for applications in polymerization inhibitors.

Ube Industries is the only Japanese manufacturer of catechol, with a total annual production capacity of 10,000 tons of diphenol derivatives as a whole from its production base in Ube City (Yamaguchi Prefecture).

Contact

For inquiries please contact
  • Ube Industries, Ltd.
  • General Affairs & Public Relations Group
  • Seavans North Building, 1-2-1 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-8449
  • Phone : +81-3-5419-6110
  • Contact us by Internet.