Tubes: a stable market

Despite experiencing difficult economic conditions, European tube production remained stable in the first half of 2015. The production of etma’s member companies.

The European production of tubes remained at the previous year’s level despite the ongoing financial crisis in Greece, some economies in the eurozone continuing to flag and the uncertain situation in Russia and the Ukraine with its associated economic sanctions. Overall, the expectations of most member companies as being cautiously optimistic.

Market outlets and types. The shares of the individual end-user markets for tubes showed barely any change. Demand from the toothpaste sector was somewhat stronger than during the corresponding last year’s period. However, all other important tube markets, such as the cosmetics, pharmaceutical and food industries and industrial and domestic applications, reported only marginal changes. Laminate tubes showed a positive development compared with the first half of 2014, whereas demand for plastic tubes declined slightly. Production figures for aluminium tubes remained almost unchanged year-on-year.

Raw material: the unknown quantity. The prices for individual raw materials and other materials are definitely giving cause for concern according to etma members. In particular the prices for the plastics used (PE and PP) have increased strongly since the beginning of the year. Among the reasons for this were some cases of plastics producers invoking force majeure clauses.
These led in part to considerable delivery bottlenecks and as a consequence to marked price increases for laminates, plastic granules and last but not least for closures and caps as well.
The trend towards ever smaller lot sizes and shorter ordering and delivery times is also continuing. At the same time, clients are placing ever greater demands on the design, decoration and finish of the tubes. Nevertheless – the etma top management declares - the European tube industry is well positioned here, by means of more efficient production, investments in innovative technologies and continual optimisation of process chains.