Report: The Changing Plastics Compounding Business

In viewing the entire thermoplastic market, the resin producers account for the majority of the compounding activity (producing around 44.585 billion pounds in 2006), followed by plastic processors (12.964 billion pounds) and independent compounders (8.173 billion pounds). Independent compounders, though, will show the highest average annual growth rate (AAGR) at 5.3%.
When viewing this market by the individual thermoplastics covered in this report, these ratios can be vastly different. For example, the major polyethylene variants, HDPE, LDPE and LLDPE along with polystyrene are compounded mostly by resin producers, while PVC is compounded mostly by processors.
There are several key trends within the plastic compounding business which will take some time to become significant. They are: forward integration of resin producers into compounding; increased backward integration of large plastic processors into compounding; increased specialization of independent compounders; continued movement of compounding production.