Metallized Polyester Shortages

Metallized Polyester Shortages and Price Increases

This letter is important to our customers who purchase bags made with MPET barrier film.

Dear Customer,

You may have started to read in the press and hear news about a problem in the conversion of 12-micron PET, the base product we use at our sister company Vacumet to produce Metallized Polyester. Vacumet’s Metallized Polyester is used in many of our barrier bag applications.

There are several reasons why this shortage has come about:

• Increased global demand for PET films in non-packaging applications and market segments such as cell phones and high-definition, flat-screen televisions.
• Lag in the capitalization and start-up of new film manufacturing capacity due to the 2008/09 recession.
• Anti-dumping action against PET manufacturers in China, Taiwan, India and Brazil, forcing the potential exit of packaging-grade PET manufacturers from the U.S. market.

The Global Operations and Supply Chain group within Scholle are working hard to help Vacumet find alternative suppliers of PET film, as well as the direct purchase from–and qualification of–alternative MPET vendors. For an update, please check our website at www.scholle.com.

As a result of these actions, we have already seen a significant increase in MPET costs which, to-date, Scholle has absorbed. We cannot continue to take these increases and this letter is to notify all our customers using MPET film that increases will soon be advised.

Paul Dean
Vice President – North America Commercial