I work in an industry that orders/uses plastic components. Right now multiple orders of different common plastics, that we placed at the end of 2020, have been delayed due to a resin shortage.
Plastic resins are the plastic small beads that are converted into larger components.
So look for prices on just about everything to rise.
I think this has a lot to do with Biden cutting off US oil.
Just wanted to share.
Nope.
https://www.plasticstoday.com/resin-pricing/weekly-resin-report-february-could-set-record-largest-pp-price-increase-single-month
Big, record breaking, historic blizzards that shut down the gulf states impacted the resin supply, not Biden.
Makes sense for some of the materials (LDPE) but not for the other resins, we had them on order back in October and had them scheduled for delivery before everything froze over.
But that is interesting I didn’t know the logistics were so impacted by the freeze.
Well, it was 2020. There's shortages everywhere in industries - the chip shortage is impacting everyone, even the car industry.
You mean the blizzards horribly exacerbated by the Biden regime refusal to relax energy emissions standards? Yeah.
It is true. I have seen a 14% increase in prices since last fall on almost everything used to develop land and build.
Just wait until the "new and improved" fuel prices hit you in the down market. Shit already has me crying "uncle" over here!
It’s putting a dent in my works production. Will be an interesting few weeks. Just a meeting about it today
I think a lot of recycling operations were disrupted by COVID restrictions.
You can only really use recycled plastics to blend into virgin or your production will suffer all sorts of weird issues. That mix can get as high as 50/50 in extreme cases.
Plastic recycling is a farce anyway, most of it gets incinerated to convert the heat into power.
There's another reason for this shortage.
Interesting. I was just backflushing the plastic resin beads from our water softener last night and was wondering where that material comes from in case we have to replace it.
Not so much to do with oil, but the idling of assets from last year. Oil plays a part in it, as you can make plastic from either NG or oil feedstocks. They’ve probably already ramped up production to meet demand.
Great. One more thing I have to stock up on.
I work in a plastics factory 104 degrees in the summer working next to 400+ degree machines to melt and mold. Those lucky of us like myself have been on furlough since April. The others were laid off. It's been 9+ months we haven't been active and making plastics. That's a huge red flag.
We have 7 stations in the east wing where I work, 2 making plastic palettes, some making tractor parts, and most importantly molds for manufacturing of baby products. .Those baby products are gonna increase, because those molds don't last forever, and we haven't been able to manufacture any in 9 months.
Makes me sick to hear that pede, sorry bro :(
My customers used COVID as an excuse to trim their workforce down by almost 30% in each location. They stayed open and doing business. Some old timers are losing their shit with the extra workload and are ready to retire early. I think it's going to really hurt these companies in the long run. They don't have enough cross training going on and very specific knowledge is going to be leaving them soon in droves.
If you think those tools get worn out with the old geezers around with their head on a swivel, imagine when the ipad generation is there playing candy crush while the giant 32 cavity tool is crashing and you're stuck ordering a new one from chy-nah.
I don't understand why tractors and baby stuff would have suffered during COVID though, what's up with that?
Did you know John Freakin Deere is up like 140% or some crazy shit since last year?
Here's an alternative take (I work in industrial automation and two of our customers are rather large contract manufacturers with sizeable injection molding plants in the Midwest).
Chinese New Year just ended. 40% of the entry level workforce does not return to the state run factories after going back home during the holiday to party with their families.
If your suppliers were trying to cut inventory to the bone due to COVID and/or bean-counters trying to do "just in time" delivery - you'd see what you're seeing now.
I might be working in one of those factories... if I wasn't furloughed and the place shut down the past 9 months.