Shin-Etsu announces global price increase for silicone

Tokyo, Japan -Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. announced that it is going to increase the sales prices of all of its silicone products by ten percent globally effective May 2022.

In the latter half of 2021, silicon metal, the main raw material of silicones, faced a tightening of supply and demand globally due to such effects as electricity regulations in the main production area of China, and at the peak time, the price of silicon metal sharply rose by close to 6 times of the price prior to the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic. Even today, the price of silicon metal is continuing to increase by over double the price prior to the Covid 19 pandemic. Furthermore, in the other areas of production besides China, the price of silicon metal continues to be at a level of over 3 times that of the price prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In addition, the price of the raw material methanol remains at a high level, and there has been a sharp rise in the cost of the energy needed for manufacturing, such as natural gas. Furthermore, logistics costs and the prices of secondary materials are rising with such background factors as the disruptions in global logistics and the sharp rise in the price of crude oil and raw material prices, and these are becoming contributing factors putting pressure on earnings.

Shin-Etsu is continuing our own company’s efforts aimed at the reduction in manufacturing costs. However, at this time we have judged that by these efforts of our company alone it will be difficult to absorb the entire amount of these increased costs, and unavoidably, it has become necessary to implement price revisions, as stated below.