Many acrylate monomers are produced from commodity raws such as acrylic acid. Since these particular materials are early in the supply chain for chemicals, they are very heavily impacted by the fluctuating price of oil. Consider that July 1, 2008, Dow Chemicals announced anywhere upto a 42% price increase because of the (then) very high oil prices - this was back in the $140-150/barrel hey day. Producers that utilized the acrylates produced by Dow felt some very very real price impact. This had an enormous ripple effect through the industry that probably instigated an average of 5-10% price increase through the entire food chain, even in the specialty chemical industry. Effectively, Dow instigated a raw material based inflation in the industry.
Always worth considering that when the price of oil changes, so do the prices of many chemical products. Everyone worries about the impact of oil at the pump, but they forget that oil prices directly impact nearly every other purchase they make because the plastic wrappers, the preservatives and label adhesives in their grocery purchases are also impacted. This is not even getting into the pharmaceutical intermediates that are affected.
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