As Frontline magazine’s 2 March 2026 article by Apoorvanand asked, “Who will stop the bully now? America and Israel bombed Iran, killed leaders, and abandoned a near-deal. The government didn’t fall. Does the world have the courage to control this descent before it spins further out of control?”
While our government is more complicit than courageous, the practice among Indian businesspersons is to simply continue to find workarounds to the latest crisis. Resilience means accepting calamities as long as we have some working capital and sufficient energy to operate our plants and homes. Many continue to live almost obliviously in La La land, heads buried in the sand, although on the other side of the horizon, there is death and destruction.
On our side and nearby, people are struggling to buy gas cylinders at extortionate prices to run their kitchens, tea shops, restaurants, dhabas, and small businesses. Others are heading back to their villages. For bigger businesses, this is no more a disruption than demonetization, reciprocal tariffs, the latest flood, bridge or road collapse, riot, currency devaluation, change in GST rules, or governments. Used to these ups and downs, we feel compelled to run our businesses, reconciled to satisfying the latest set of demands of officials, customers, and employees.
As far as the packaging business is concerned, every industry leader we have spoken with says their company and production are greatly affected by the increased prices and shortages of energy and raw materials. And if not outright shortage and unavailability, as in the case of industrial supply of gas and polymers, there are significant increases in the prices of paperboard, paper, chemicals, inks, and adhesives, right from the first week of the war.
A film manufacturer with three lines has not received gas since 15 March but is hopeful of receiving 20% of the normal supply from 1 April. Biaxial lines are neither easy to stop nor restart without considerable waste. Manufactured film cannot be shipped due to a lack of coating, metalizing, slitting, and rewinding. When energy supplies resume, there is no raw material, as even the higher-priced polymers have run out. A polymer consignment is stuck on a ship in the Persian Gulf.
The price of India’s imported oil basket per barrel was US$ 69.01 in February 2026. On March 13, it was US$ 136.56 per barrel, rising to US$ 156.29 on 19 March. On 27 March, the country’s oil basket was trading at US$ 121.15 per barrel and expected to trade between US$ 121 and US$ 137 in the first half of April. Directly related to packaging (and pipes, electrical goods, automotive, and consumer goods) are polyethylene and polypropylene, of which the Gulf states respectively represent 32 to 35%, and 9% of global capacity.
The impact of the war goes beyond oil. For India and South Asia, the impact is on urea, ammonia, helium, sulphur, methanol, polyethylene, and polypropylene. The Gulf’s share of global exports used for fertilizer and chemical inputs is 35-45% for urea, and 30% for ammonia. The share of helium production that is used for silicon chips and medical imaging is 38.8%. Its share of sulphur production is 21.6%, which is used for fertilizer, mining, metal processing, and uranium extraction. Additionally, the Gulf states export 32 to 35% of the world’s methanol used for fuel, chemical inputs, and biodiesel.
The Food and Agriculture Organization is projecting a 15 to 20% rise in global fertilizer prices. Although Indian food stocks are relatively strong, the rural economy will suffer from this and also from rising fuel prices, which enable groundwater irrigation and transport of goods.
As far as packaging, observing the overall rise in costs, many but not all brand owners are cooperating in absorbing higher packaging prices, while others are threatening to hold new reverse auctions. Converters are scrambling to source raw materials and develop alternative supply chains from China and other sources. This takes time and involves risks, including the continuous devaluation of the Indian Rupee.
Understandably, each packaging company is on its own, largely unable to act with any concerted unity to collectively source, trade, or store raw materials or to finance inventories of spare parts or energy. Packaging converters say they will remain resilient and hopeful in April, but if the war does not end in the next 15 days, the situation in May and June could be extremely adverse. It is a depressing start to the new financial year.
