Wisconsin Roofers are preparing for an asphalt material price increase to occur in the near future.  Based on word from manufacturers and distributers, asphalt prices are set to increase by 7 to 10% in early March due to a number of forces, and roofing project costs will increase proportionally.  Roofers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are hopeful prices will stabilize after the expected increase, but price reductions are unlikely in the near-term.  The surest bet for facility owners to realize savings in asphaltic roofing systems is to act quickly prior to the looming increase.

There are a number of forces manifest in the price increase; chief among them are supply and demand, and refining efficiency.

Despite the current economic recession, demand for asphalt remains steady to high.  Developing countries such as India and China have begun to report growth as they emerge from the recession.  Considering that roughly 85% of all refined asphalt goes for road-building applications, and 15% for roofing (and other) applications, there is considerable demand stress for asphalt in general as developing nations build roads.  Domestic road-building applies demand stresses to the supply as well.

In 2007, Low-sulfur fuel mandates forced domestic refiners to retrofit their operations to include "cokers" to replace the traditional de-asphalter in the petroleum distillation process.  Asphalt is manufactured in process where a heavy petroleum distillate called "vac-bottoms" left over from refining gasoline is extracted from the refining still.  A coker further refines the vac-bottoms to extract more of the light hydrocarbon from the materials traditionally used to manufacture asphalt.  The highly-efficient coker method does not produce asphalt, and enables refiners to produce higher-value products.  As refiners gear up for summer fuel demand, hardly incentive for the refiners to manufacture asphalts, as the price per unit is lower than that of fuels.