Titanium Dioxide Prices Are Up Again! This Round of Increases Has One Real Driver: Sulfuric Acid

The fourth round of titanium dioxide price hikes has landed, and sulfuric acid costs are becoming impossible to absorb.

This mid-April round of titanium dioxide price hikes came in even more uniformly than expected.

On April 15, Longbai Group took the lead by issuing a notice, raising domestic prices by RMB 1,500/ton and international prices by USD 200/ton. As soon as the news came out, companies including Guangxi Jinmao Titanium, Panzhihua Haifengxin Chemical, Shandong Jinhai Titanium, Shandong Xianghai Titanium Resources Technology, Tinergy Chemical, Bengbu Guotai Nano Materials, Guangxi Bluestar Dahua Chemical, and Nanjing Titanium Dioxide followed almost in sync. Up to now, titanium dioxide prices in the domestic market have already risen four times this year, with cumulative increases of RMB 3,200–3,500/ton, while cumulative increases in international markets have reached USD 500–550/ton.

If we look at Longbai Group alone, it has adjusted prices four times in a row since early March, with cumulative increases of RMB 3,500/ton domestically and USD 550/ton internationally. This kind of frequency and scale is rare even in the context of the titanium dioxide market over the past two decades.

Sulfuric acid prices have doubled, completely rewriting the cost line

The core driver behind this round of price hikes is not titanium dioxide itself, but upstream sulfuric acid.

With sulfuric acid rising from just above RMB 1,000/ton to more than RMB 2,000/ton, titanium dioxide producers simply cannot absorb the cost without raising prices. In sulfuric-acid-process titanium dioxide production, sulfuric acid is not some optional auxiliary material; it is a core variable that directly determines unit production cost. Once the cost line is lifted this much, the pricing system has to move with it.

Behind this sulfuric acid surge are multiple factors layered together: geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and tightness across the global sulfur supply chain. Sulfur prices have broken above RMB 6,000/ton, and that pressure has transmitted down the chain until it landed squarely on titanium dioxide.

Price adjustments are highly synchronized across companies

Looking at the price adjustments themselves, most companies issued notices on April 15 and April 16, with domestic increases largely aligned at RMB 1,500/ton and international increases concentrated at USD 200/ton. Only Nanjing Titanium Dioxide was relatively milder, raising domestic prices by RMB 1,000/ton and international prices by USD 150/ton, while Chemours set its international increase to take effect on May 1, at USD 100/ton.

This highly synchronized pace of price increases shows that the industry has already formed a relatively unified expectation. When the leading producer keeps issuing notices and others quickly follow, what the market sees is no longer isolated testing by individual companies, but an entire industry repricing itself according to the same cost logic.

The supply side is also adding support

In addition to cost pressure, the supply side is also helping drive this round of increases.

At present, the overall operating rate of the titanium dioxide industry is around 75%–80%. Some companies are undergoing maintenance or controlling output, and spot supply is not particularly loose to begin with. On top of that, many producers already have order books extending one to two months out, meaning the market is not in a state of “too much product that cannot be sold,” but rather “there is not that much product available in the first place.”

When rising costs are layered on top of tightening supply, the support for price hikes becomes much stronger. The current market is a classic case of cost, supply, and orders resonating at the same time.

A policy variable: sulfuric acid export suspension

There is also one policy factor worth watching — starting from May 2026, China will fully suspend exports of ordinary sulfuric acid.

On the surface, an export suspension would mean more sulfuric acid stays in the domestic market. But what the market is concerned about is whether, after supply is redistributed, spot circulation could become even tighter and prices could remain at elevated levels. At least from current expectations, this policy is unlikely to make the market feel relaxed immediately. Instead, it is reinforcing the view that sulfuric acid prices are unlikely to fall in the short term.

How should the market be viewed from here?

In the short term, titanium dioxide will most likely remain more likely to rise than fall. For the market to cool down meaningfully, several conditions would need to be met: sulfuric acid prices would need to stabilize, supply would need to loosen, and order books would need to become less tight. Before those things happen, this rally is unlikely to end easily.