On July 31, 2006, a work stoppage occurred at Neville Chemical's Neville Island manufacturing facility. The immediate effect was to tighten the already highly-utilized stream of hydrocarbon resins used in the printing ink and coatings industries. What this means is that many inks that are supplied in petroleum-based and vegetable oil-based systems could potentially be in increasingly short supply though late summer and fall of 2006. This includes heatset web offset inks, news inks, sheetfed offset inks, and some gravure inks.

Below is a link to the release regarding the current strike that can be found on Neville Chemical's Website:

There have already been some consequences. Resinall Corporation has instituted a rationing plan due to the fact that their facilities are running at capacity.

Below is a link to Resinall's website:

What this means to Kerley Ink and its clients is not good news. Hundreds of Kerley products are affected by this shortage, and increased prices for these products is a sure outcome. But availability is going to be a headache for Kerley Ink and many, if not all, of our competitors, too. Please be assured that Kerley Ink has already anticipated this shortage and is actively developing alternative resin systems to enable the continuous supply of products.