Recently, a number of international chemicals suppliers have announced price rises or indicated that they are currently under review. The cost of raw materials has been rising steadily since 2002 and they now feel that they must pass these increases on to customers. TFL were the first to inform us that they had been forced to increase prices, effective from September 1. BASF announced their price increases on the first day of Tanning Tech. According to BASF the price of formate has risen by as much as 20% so products with a high formate content will rise the most. They have opted for a sliding scale of rises which will reflect the actual cost of each product formulation.

Prices are currently also under review at Dr Boehme and others. ‘Dramatically higher and still rising cost of raw materials’ is how BASF described the situation and all of Europe’s supply industry is greatly concerned with the increasingly stringent regulations which are both imminent and potentially destructive.