Liner laminates or balancing sheet laminate production has nosedived suddenly due to never seen price jump in craft paper history. The raw material price hike has impacted the laminate prices so hard that laminate companies have almost shelved their ‘liner grade production’ by 75 %. The liner mica sector is highly price sensitive material that has almost 47% of market share of India’s total decorative laminate consumption.
In HPL, the craft paper and resin play an important role in laminate manufacturing. The recycled craft paper prices have gone up by 40 % in a months’ time that has directly increased the input cost by 20 to 22 rupee per sheet. Apart from this Melamine and Phenol have added another around Rs 10 input cost. The décor paper impact is also adding to the woos of HPL manufacturers. Witnessing a sharp Rs 30 to 40 per sheet jump in input cost varying from factory to factory, the liner laminates manufacturing has become unviable on prevailing prices hence we have reduced our production of liner by half’ comments Mr Prabhjot from Mwud Laminates, Ludhiana. Another producer from NCR region exhorted the same ‘despite of a rise of Rs 20 per sheet there are losses in liner manufacturing as of now’. The laminate manufacturers are suddenly not supplying liner at old prices or even on increased prices, that has led to a huge chaos and scarcity in B2B segment.
Morbi based laminate producers are of view that ‘the recent price hike of ready products are not meeting up the margin that’s why the production is going down, Secondly the payment scenario is also not smooth as it was few months before’. It has once again reached to 60 days that is completely unviable says laminate producers in Yamuna Nagar to the Ply Reporter correspondent.
It is noted that Liner grade laminate have been an important driver of HPL manufacturing capacity growth in India. Approximately 50 percent share of the total HPL manufacturing comes from 0.6 to 0.7 mm thickness that is advised to be used in balancing or as a backer (inside of the panels where designer sheet is pasted on the top surface) in India.