China’s waterborne acrylic emulsion market is facing a coordinated round of price increases after three major producers — Baolijia, BATF and Wanhua Chemical — moved to pass sharply higher raw-material costs downstream.
During the first half of August, the companies announced increases ranging from 5% to 15% for waterborne acrylic emulsion products, citing rising crude-linked feedstock costs, geopolitical uncertainty and higher prices for key monomers.
Shanghai Baolijia Chemical announced on August 12 that prices across its full waterborne acrylic emulsion portfolio would increase by 10%–15% with immediate effect.
BATF’s building materials business issued a similar notice on August 11, raising prices across its product range by 10%–15%.
Wanhua Chemical moved first. Its Surface Materials business issued a notice on August 6, with a 5%–10% increase in waterborne acrylic emulsion prices effective August 7.
The significance lies in the timing.
An individual producer raising prices can reflect company-specific costs or positioning.
Three leading suppliers moving within days of one another suggests something broader:
the increase in upstream monomer costs has reached a level that the acrylic emulsion industry is no longer willing or able to absorb internally.
Waterborne acrylic emulsions occupy a critical position between petrochemical monomers and downstream coatings and construction materials.
They are generally produced through emulsion polymerization using acrylic ester monomers together with other vinyl monomers such as styrene and methyl methacrylate.
Their major applications include architectural coatings, waterproofing products, adhesives, textiles, packaging, wood coatings and metal coatings.
This makes raw-material economics particularly important.
Baolijia’s 2025 annual report states that butyl acrylate, styrene, methyl methacrylate and related materials account for approximately 60%–65% of the company’s total production cost.
When several of those raw materials rise at the same time, margin pressure can build quickly.
That is exactly what has happened since July.
Industry market reports show a sharp rebound across China’s acrylic acid and acrylate chain, with butyl acrylate prices moving materially higher into August. MMA has also strengthened significantly. Market services continued to report elevated and volatile regional butyl acrylate pricing across East, South and North China on August 13–14.
Industry reporting put East China butyl acrylate at roughly RMB 8,250–8,350 per tonne by mid-August, compared with around RMB 6,800 per tonne at the beginning of July — an increase of about RMB 1,500 per tonne.
MMA was reported around RMB 11,500–11,600 per tonne, roughly RMB 1,700 above its July low.
Actual transaction prices vary by supplier, delivery terms and region, but the direction is clear.
The increase cannot be explained by crude oil alone.
Acrylic ester economics are affected by the wider crude-to-propylene and alcohol chain, while MMA and styrene each have their own feedstock and operating-rate dynamics.
A more accurate interpretation is that higher energy and petrochemical costs, combined with tighter conditions in several important monomers, have raised the total formulation cost for acrylic emulsion producers.
Baolijia’s participation in the increase is particularly relevant.
The company is one of China’s main listed waterborne acrylic emulsion producers, supplying architectural coatings, waterproofing, packaging, textiles and other applications.
Its 2025 annual report estimated total Chinese acrylic emulsion capacity at approximately 7.4 million tonnes, versus production of around 3.56 million tonnes.
That gap illustrates how competitive the market remains.
In an industry already carrying substantial capacity, producers are normally cautious about aggressive pricing because customers can switch suppliers.
The fact that Baolijia still announced a 10%–15% increase suggests that the latest raw-material inflation is substantial enough to outweigh some of those competitive concerns.
BATF carries even greater significance in architectural coatings.
The company describes itself as Asia’s largest integrated producer and supplier of waterborne emulsions and functional additives for architectural coatings and operates a broad manufacturing network across China.
Public information showed BATF producing around 1.3 million tonnes of waterborne emulsion as early as 2021, while individual newer sites such as its Jiangmen facility have added substantial acrylic emulsion and water-based adhesive capacity.
A 10%–15% increase from a supplier of that scale can materially influence price negotiations throughout China’s architectural coatings and waterproofing sectors.
Wanhua brings a different dimension.
Unlike specialist emulsion producers, Wanhua operates an extensively integrated chemical value chain.
Its Surface Materials business covers waterborne polyurethane dispersions, waterborne acrylics, polyurethane-acrylic hybrids, waterborne UV systems, epoxies, rheology modifiers and other technologies.
The company explicitly highlights its integration with upstream polyurethane and acrylate raw materials as one of the foundations of its surface materials strategy.
In theory, that integration should provide some insulation from feedstock volatility.
Yet Wanhua still moved first with a 5%–10% acrylic emulsion increase.
That suggests the latest cost pressure is broad enough to affect even producers with substantial upstream integration.
The next question is whether the increases can be fully passed through to downstream customers.
Waterborne acrylic emulsion is a major binder in architectural coatings, waterproofing systems and water-based adhesives.
If the announced increases are implemented in full, formulators in all three sectors will face a noticeable rise in production costs.
But downstream demand does not appear equally strong.
Baolijia’s annual report noted that China’s building materials industry remained in a recovery phase, with profitability and working-capital conditions still under pressure. It also highlighted intense competition within acrylic emulsions.
That creates a difficult transmission mechanism:
feedstocks rise first, emulsion producers attempt to pass the increase through, but weak construction demand may prevent coatings and waterproofing companies from passing the full cost on again.
The result could be margin compression further down the chain.
Large coatings and waterproofing manufacturers often have meaningful purchasing power, meaning actual negotiated prices may not increase by exactly the percentages stated in producer notices.
Some customers may also reduce near-term purchasing, consume inventories or adjust formulations.
However, when Baolijia, BATF and Wanhua are all moving prices in the same direction, buyers have fewer opportunities to avoid the increase simply by switching suppliers.
That is what makes this round different from an isolated producer announcement.
If raw-material prices remain elevated, other acrylic emulsion manufacturers may follow.
If butyl acrylate, MMA and styrene fall quickly over the coming weeks, however, actual market increases could ultimately be smaller than the headline producer adjustments.
Three indicators will therefore be important.
The first is whether butyl acrylate and MMA remain at elevated levels.
The second is whether additional emulsion producers issue price notices.
The third is whether September’s seasonal demand from coatings, waterproofing and construction-related applications is strong enough to support the new price levels.
If higher feedstock costs coincide with stronger seasonal demand, producers will have a much better chance of making the increases stick.
The broader market backdrop is unusually contradictory.
Long-term environmental and low-VOC trends continue to support substitution toward waterborne coatings and adhesives.
At the same time, years of capacity additions and aggressive competition have limited producer margins.
When feedstock costs are low, suppliers compete heavily for volume.
When key monomers rise rapidly, that strategy becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.
The simultaneous moves from Baolijia, BATF and Wanhua suggest the market is temporarily shifting from competing for volume toward protecting the cost base.
The most important development is therefore not the headline 5%–15% increase itself. It is the renewed transmission of upstream petrochemical inflation into China’s coatings and construction-material supply chain.
If that process continues, the next round of cost pressure will increasingly be felt by coatings, waterproofing, adhesives and ultimately downstream construction and industrial users.
