Iron oxide pigments: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Iron oxide pigments are made synthetically, mainly in China, from scrap iron, pickling liquor and chemical by-products, or mined as natural ochre and hematite. They colour concrete, paints and plastics, and new uses include battery cathode precursors. Prices are contract based.
No public price Iron oxide pigments has no public monthly price series: Sold on contracts by grade and colour; no public monthly price series.What its price moves with
Iron oxides are the most widely used inorganic pigments by volume, giving reds, yellows, browns and blacks. They compete on cost with organic and other inorganic pigments, and Chinese export supply sets world prices.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Paints, primers and coatings use iron oxide pigments for colour and corrosion protection. Coatings demand from construction and industry therefore drives a large share of iron oxide volumes, alongside its use in plastics and rubber colouring.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Coloured paving blocks, roof tiles and architectural concrete use iron oxide pigments. Building and landscaping activity therefore links iron oxide demand to cement and concrete consumption, since pigment is added at the block or ready-mix plant.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Steel pickling lines produce waste acid rich in dissolved iron, which can be roasted or precipitated into iron oxide. Steel output therefore supplies raw material, and regeneration plants sell iron oxide as a co-product.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Acid regeneration plants recover hydrochloric acid from spent steel pickling liquor and produce iron oxide at the same time. The economics of acid recovery therefore help set the supply of this iron oxide.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Lithium iron phosphate cathodes need high-purity iron sources such as iron phosphate or iron oxide. Rapid LFP battery growth, led by Chinese cell makers, has created a new, high-specification market for synthetic iron compounds with tight impurity limits.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.