Growing oil prices have effect on our daily behavior and some already leave their car at home. In The Netherlands (where we are located) we currently pay €1,60 for one liter of gasoline. Besides higher prices for transportation, there is a reason to expect that prices of a DVD recordable could rise with polycarbonate being one of the raw materials used for the production of the discs. And polycarbonate is made of oil which makes disc manufacturers dependent on the daily oil prices but will oil prices really affect the prices of recordable discs the coming time, and what kind of changes can we expect, if any?
Theobald Rüdiger, Marketing and Business Development Manager at Verbatim, believes that the rising oil prices will have no impact on the company’s pricing and offerings. “Oil is for sure one of the biggest components used in a disc, but over years now the market was not influenced by this.” Rüdiger explains to CDFreaks.com that prices are purely supply and demand orientated out of Asian factories and that “even the doubling of plastic prices years ago did not have any impact”.
With Verbatim following these market trends intensively, also Intenso seems to be unconcerned. According to Frank Buschermoihli at Intenso, the company can’t take steps every time the oil price reaches a new level. "The summer isn’t the time to make changes, since the calm season slows down sales anyway", he added.
Another company that isn’t planning any steps shortly is Maxell. A company spokesperson at Maxell said firmly ‘no’ to my question if they expected any price changes, but recognized the rising problem. A while ago its engineers were in contact with several factories but their insiders didn’t see any problems and advised Maxell not to take any steps now.
For now we should expect no impact and rely on the info offered from these market insiders. Overall we can expect that the prices will not suffer any damage from the high price per barrel, but we will see a change in packaging, says Jacob van der Hoeven of RITEK Europe. “When the oil price rises we usually see some shifting with packaging methods.” These are made of plastics which are made of, yes again, oil.
