Epoxy resins had been once a speciality, however massive swathes of the market have been commoditized, with price the primary differentiator among services. The business faces the various travails that afflict different bulk chemical, viz., considerable overcapacity, lesser than expected demand growth, and falling margins. The Indian trade government have currently responded to the domestic industry’s appeal for safety from a surge in low priced imports and anti-dumping duties (ADDs) starting from $37/ton to $483/ton have been imposed on material from China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Thailand, for 5-years (see news pages of this issue).
As in step with the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) imports increased by 153% among FY21 and 2023, forcing a 15% decline in domestic selling prices, beneath costs for the two Indian manufacturers who filed the complaint.
India is not the only country feeling the heat. In July last year, the European Union (EU) started an anti-dumping investigation on imports from China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. While it spared South Korean manufacturers from a final levy, others were not. A 32% ADD levy was put on the Aditya Birla Group (ABG), which has a big production facility in Thailand. In May 2025, the United States too imposed ADDs on imports from South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand (sparing the negligible imports from India and China).
But the move did nothing to shore up prices, showing the tender market situations. Resin prices in Northwest Europe were around €2,140 per ton in October 2025, beneath the €2,600 per ton level in March.
Numerous grades & diverse applications
The most extensively used epoxy resins are made by responding bisphenol-A (BPA) and epichlorohydrin (ECH). The basic resins so produced are then interconnected using particular components – hardeners – typically earlier to use.
They are made in numerous of forms: from low viscosity liquids to high melting point solids, and in a broad range of molecular weights – from a few hundreds to tens of thousands. They can be recovered a variety of curing agents in time scales ranging from minutes to months, at temperatures ranging from sub-zero to few hundred. Their service temperatures too vary – from as low as -170°C to a high of 220°C.
All this permits for customizing the polymer to the application at hand, which spans coatings, electrical & electronics, composites, construction etc.
The leading market is coatings, accounting for 45-50% of consumption globally. In marine coatings, specially, epoxy resins are highly favoured, as also in powder coatings and for lining cans & coils. The mixture of excessive flexibility, good chemical resistance, potential to resist temperatures in which packed foods are sterilized and their low value have made them the selected choice for lining the interiors and exteriors of metallic food packaging. Other huge markets are electrical/electronics, creation, composites and adhesives.
About 80% of epoxies are commodities, but the other 20% incorporate speciality products inclusive of industrial adhesives for automotives, and composites for aerospace and wind turbine blades. These have better barriers to entry like creating skills and technical guide, especially valued via customers. Use of glass-filled epoxy composites for wind turbine blades, as an example, is a excessive growth area, and requirement from offshore wind turbines are predicted to clock an annual growth rate of about 10%. Superstrong, light-weight carbon fibre strengthened epoxy composites find use in aircraft, sporting items, pressure vessels (e.g., for storing compressed natural gas in vehicles) and automotives. Automotive assembly is also seeing wider use of epoxies to bond dissimilar materials of construction (steel, plastics and aluminium), difficult with mechanical fasteners or welding.
Global markets
Since 2010 there has been a widespread boom in global production capability for epoxies, particularly due to massive investments in mainland China and South Korea. This put significant pressure on the commoditized portion of the business and brought about massive restructuring elsewhere within the world. Dow Chemical, for example, divested its base epoxy interests in mid-2015, and more latest Huntsman and Hexion closed some plants in Europe and North America. Nearly two-thirds of the ability between 2019 to 2024 was in mainland China, which added about 1.1-mtpa to a substantial base already existing. The country now debts for around half of of total global nameplate capacity, and a bit more than half of demand. In evaluation, India’s domestic market represents a share of under 5%.
Latest developments in India
The Indian markets for the epoxy resins were expanding at an good rate of about 10% per annum for the previous couple of years. The market is split into liquid resins, solid epoxies, solvent-based epoxies and created products that include fillers and components. Coatings and adhesives (in that order) are the important stores, although other applications extensively in civil construction (grouting, floors) and engineering were growing, albeit from a small base. The market for tooling remains nevertheless negligible, even though this is an critical application in the evolved world.
In spite of the travails of the business and margin pressures, great new capacity has currently been formed. In early 2024, Grasim Industries Ltd. (a part of ABG), inaugurated its expanded ability, which consisted epoxy resins and formulated products (from 123-ktpa to 246-ktpa) at Vilayat, Gujarat. In October 2024, Atul Ltd., the oldest corporation in the epoxy business in India, expanded capacity of its liquid epoxy resins by way of 50-ktpa, at an investment of Rs. 200-crore. In February 2024, DCM Shriram Ltd. Introduced plans to enter the business, as a forward integration to its ECH operations (which 50-ktpa plant turned into commissioned in October this year). In June 2025, the corporation signed a definitive agreement to collect Hindustan Speciality Chemicals Ltd. (HSCL), which operates a 17-ktpa liquid epoxy resins facility at Jhagadia (Gujarat).
Renewable and sustainable epoxies
The value chain for epoxy resins, beginning from BPA and ECH, is mainly petrochemical. While BPA is obtained from phenol and acetone (in turn obtained from benzene and propylene), ECH has mainly been made from propylene and chlorine. Of past due, however, a new source of ECH has come to the fore: its produce from glycerol – a by-product of the biodiesel industry. The quick build-up in biodiesel capacity globally has resulted in a surfeit of glycerol that traditional end-uses can’t absorb. All ECH capability that has arise in India these days had been on the glycerol-route, because it obviates the need to source the not-so-easily-available propylene.
Numerous other reactive diluents used can also be obtained from renewable assets. The C12-C14 glycidyl ethers – amongst the most usually used – may be attained from the corresponding natural fatty alcohols, even as the C18 dimer acid diglycidyl ether, used for increase flexibility in anti-corrosion paints, can be based on dimer fatty acids. Likewise, castor oil obtained triglycidyl ethers may be used for reinforcing flexibility of epoxy resins.
Nevertheless, attaining a totally bio-based epoxy system, with 100% renewable content, remains a complex but ongoing pursuit.
Another big challenge for which solutions are yet to emerge at scale, is the recyclability of components made from cured epoxy resins. As a result, most epoxy waste finally ends up in landfills, where it persists for many years or longer without breaking down. Its chemical stability, seen as a advantage, turns into a critical drawback when considering about lifecycle effect. ABG, which has a large stake within the epoxy business, going beyond its India operations, has evolved Recylamine technology, which uses a couple of unique amine-based curing agents that includes engineered cleavage points at crosslinking sites. Under pre-defined situations, these allow conversion of thermosetting epoxies into thermoplastics, and recovery & reuse of reinforcing fibre and matrix material.
Challenging enterprise
The business of epoxies is likely to stay a challenging one for the near future! Globally, some consolidation has taken place – although no longer sufficient. In such times, particularly will require economies of scale, integration and innovation. There is benefit in turning the focus onto price-added formulated products focused at particular applications as opposed to just simple liquid resins.
