ROCKINGHAM — While some towns around Vermont are dealing with a shortage of paint for redoing crosswalks and road markings, local highway departments say they have enough to take care of their needs.
“There's no paint shortage here,” said Larry White, crew chief of the Rockingham Highway Department.
White had not heard anything about a paint shortage either. “I'm standing here looking at a pallet full of paint for the year,” he said, adding that his department won't be cutting back on any projects in Rockingham, Saxtons River or Bellows Falls this year.
A call to Rockingham's paint supplier, Franklin Paint Co. in Franklin, Mass, however, revealed the town may have lucked out and gotten in under the wire with this year's paint order.
“There is a definite paint shortage,” said Nelson Carey, a Franklin Paint employee. “It's nationwide. They're even having problems in Europe.”
“We raised our prices 40 cents a gallon of paint last week,” Carey added. “They're having a problem with one of the resins that goes into the paint. We aren't taking any new customers, and we're allocating only portions of orders that come in.”
The shortage is specific to paint that is stenciled for directional signs like arrows, and crosswalks on roadways.
John Zicconi, a spokesperson for the Vermont Agency of Transportation, said the AOT was alerted a couple of months ago that it would only get half of the paint order that it normally got.
“Our suppliers are rationing all of their customers,” said Zicconi. “They tell us we can potentially get more by the end of the year, but they aren't promising anything.”
Zicconi said that the paint shortage has forced the AOT to rework its project list for the summer.
“We'll be taking care of what is assessed most dangerous and what was done longest ago, then other needs will be put in the queue according to priority after that,” he said.
Behind the shortage
Why is the paint in short supply? Mainly, it's due to a shortage of methyl methacrylate (MA), which is used in the production of resins and plastics. It is an organic compound used in the production of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), a main ingredient of street paints.
In June 2009, Dow Chemical declared a “force majeure” for methyl acrylate (MA) “due to an unexpected disruption in the supply of propylene, a key raw material, to the company's MA plant in Cangrejera, Mexico…the result of an unplanned and extended outage of propylene production by Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX).”
A “force majeure” literally means “greater force,” and is legalese for so-called “acts of God,” wars, or failures of third parties – such as suppliers and contractors – to perform their obligations to the contracting party. Such a declaration is often invoked to remove liability.
According to Chris Hawley of The Arizona Republic newspaper, stolen fuel from tapping into the fuel lines - including those belonging to PEMEX - is fueling drug wars in Mexico, and companies are losing $715 million a year to a siphoning off of oil products by the cartels.
Last year, according to Hawley, 462 illegal gas pipelines were drilled into PEMEX lines, a number that was quadruple what it was just six years ago. Hawley contends much of this stolen product ends up in the United States. The Mexican government is taking steps to control these 'leaks' but so far, has been unable to.
The Reuters news agency reported on May 4 that PEMEX sharply reduced the processing of crude oil and that the plant at La Cangrejera, the supplier of MA for Dow, and “has not run crude through the petrochemicals facility since October.”
The refinery has, according to Reuters, been processing naphtha, which is distilled from petroleum, coal tar and natural gas and is used as fuel, solvents and in making various chemicals. Prices on naphtha have taken a sharp rise this year.
Whether it is the theft of fuel by drug cartels in Mexico, better profit from a new product supply or an economic downturn behind the shortage of street paint, one thing is certain. Rockingham, for this year at least, will be able to complete its painting projects.
“We're all set,” White said. “We've got our paint.”