North American polyurethane buyers should prepare for price hikes from Dow Chemical by 10¢/lb for its pure and polymeric methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI). Dow has pushed back its previously announced 5¢/lb toluene diisocyanate (TDI) price increase to June 1. Dow's announcement comes two months after the Midland, Mich.-based company announced a 10¢/lb and 5¢/lb price increase for TDI and MDI respectively for the beginning of April, when it cited tight supply and high energy costs. The latest pricing data from Purchasingdata.com shows that MDI prices have climbed since January of this year.

PolyOne Corp. pushed a price increase for its vinyl compound products by 2¢ effective May 15. This increase is in addition to the increase of 3¢/lb it pushed in March. PolyOne said, "Vinyl resin producers have increased prices in March and April and have announced an increase for May. In addition, rapidly rising raw material prices based on ethylene, propylene and metals have in turn increased prices for feedstocks, plasticizers and stabilizers."

Plastics firm Wellman said effective June 1 it increased the price of all Fortrel polyester staple fiber products by 4¢/lb. Steve Ates, vice president of sales and marketing at Wellman, said in a statement, "This price increase is necessary due to continued increases in the cost of our petrochemical-based raw materials and their feedstocks."