MTI News

PRICE INCREASE DUE TO TARIFFS

Metal Tech greatly appreciates your business and support of our company. As we celebrate our 25 year anniversary of service to the gasket industry, we reinforce our commitment to continue to bring you our best personal service, engineering support, and OEM-quality products.

As you know, Metal Tech exemplifies stability and works hard to control costs, having issued only 4 increases over our 25 year history. Aside from graphite items, current prices have not changed in several years, providing stability for YOUR business. MTI goes to great lengths to work with our suppliers for the best value in materials and efficiencies, often agreeing to long-term volume commitments for raw materials without requiring the same from our customers. MTI has also passed along savings to our customers by reducing prices when lower raw material pricing is secured. We also offer our customers: quick turnaround for stocked items, short lead times, stable pricing, engineering assistance, discounted price tiers for volume usage, and many other benefits to keep you competitive in today’s marketplace.

In the last 2 years, the United States Government has inserted trade protection which as significantly altered the commodity marketplace. President Trump has used tariffs, surcharges and trade policies. These actions have resulted in heavily influencing the markets, causing increases in cost for both imported AND domestically sourced products. This tariff activity on China-supplied products already adding 25% to $200 billion in products, and another $300+billion looming. Other non-China sources have also taken advantage of the opportunity to increase selling prices that has resulted in higher costs across the board. These events are affecting our business at its core.

Anticipated over a year ago, MTI must now issue a price increase, to address the impact that these additional costs are having on our business. Effective date for this will be for orders released and shipped on or after Sept 9, 2019. MTI will honor current pricing for orders requested to ship by Sept 6. We may not be able to meet this, but you must be willing to accept it if we can ship it, to qualify for the existing price and it will be shipped as soon as schedules permit.

If the government continues its increase the mandated tariffs, through its trade policies, additional increases may be necessary. We are hopeful that the markets will stabilize.

Thank you for your continued business and partnership with Metal Tech Industries. Rest assured, we have your best interests in mind and continue to provide high-value products, often the economical choice for a performance sealing joint versus other, and more costly technologies. MTI is expanding our capabilities with exciting new developments in 2019! We value our business together and will be there to work with you towards the increased opportunities and growth that our work together will generate. We look forward to serving your sealing needs!

• Regarding the price increase announcement from 7/19/19, although it was meant to be only a notice of upcoming activity for forward planning, we failed to provide projected timing and apologize for this oversight. Items affected and amounts of the increase currently being determined at this time. We expect to have actual pricing ready mid-August for updated quotations. Thank you for your continued business and partnership with Metal Tech Industries. MTI is expanding its capabilities with exciting new developments in 2019! We look forward to serving your sealing needs!
• The price increase has been postponed. It will now start on September 30th, instead of on September 9th.

TRANSITION OF HT 400 AND AR 400 MATERIALS

Many MTI customers use these materials for sealing high-temperature exhaust applications. Please be advised that these materials will go through a transition in 2019.

Earlier this month, our fiber supplier (Hollingsworth & Vose) sold their book of business to another company (Lydall, Inc.). As a result of this, they have discontinued all H&V grades in further production effective immediately, leaving us with a supply dilemma. This press release is attached.

This disruption was unexpected, forcing us to determine the necessary actions for our goal of a smooth transition for our customers. MTI has taken steps to minimize any disturbances that you may experience during this transition. However, because we have minimal raw material supply to produce HT 400 and AR 400, you should ensure that your orders for these materials are placed as soon as possible. These products will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis until it is gone. All sales are final. PO’s are committed with no returns.

MTI has plans to have two replacement choices available in the coming weeks, including a direct replacement for a running change and an improved version with a performance upgrade to address today’s demanding engine environments. MTI will continue working directly with the OEM’s as we always have, to present materials and seek approvals.

Replacement material will be introduced in a matter of weeks so that testing and validation can be completed. Our goal is a seamless transition to the product revision. Please work with us to manage a smooth progression through this material transition.

CUTTING SERVICE CAMPAIGN

MTI started informing people about its gasket material cutting service and its $2,160 discount runs through June 30, 2019.