How To Produce Quality Paint In Nigeria

 

 Why Paint Production? Nigeria has a very large and quickly growing population. New buildings are always being erected and old buildings renovated. Hence, one commodity that will always be needed and will always be in demand is paint! With the right business plan and execution, you can make millions from the Paint Production business.
However big the initial investment, with good marketing and management, your investment will pay itself off multiple times over.  Continue reading and I will tell you what you need to know to make millions from Paint Production in Nigeria.

The first thing you will need to do is register your business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). Registration should be done as an LLC (Limited Liability Company). When you do this, it is advisable to go through a lawyer, to avoid yourself any confusion.

 

Where Should the Factory be?

Proximity to the target market is very important because you want to be able to deliver your goods on time. Wherever you choose, be close to your intended customers. Customer satisfaction promotes business.

 

How Big will the Site be?

This depends on the scale of production you want to venture into. You can produce small, medium or large scale. Your set up could be within your very compound for small scale production or in a factory for medium to large scale but each comes with its own cost and its own reward.

 

Producing the paint

There are different types of paints used in Nigeria, some of which are Emulsion, Gloss, Textured and Ceiling paints and the basic components are;
1.The solvent: Some of the major paints used in Nigeria are either Oil based paints which are usually shiny and glossy or water based paints which are not.
2.The pigment: This gives the paint its color.
3. Additives
4. Resins

All the ingredients needed to make paint can be found in the market and all you have to do is buy them mix them into a paste and package. You don’t need any special education to make paint because it is quite a simple process. Just ensure you make good quality.

 

Paint Production Chemicals and Usages

These chemicals can be used (with little addition and subtraction) to produce the following plains:- Emulsion Paints, Texcoat Paints, Silk Paints, Screeding Paints, P.O.P.Paints, Satin Paints, Stucco Paints, Road marking Paints, Anti-rust Paints, Primer/undercoat paints, Aluminum Paints, Fire retardant Paints, Glossy/Oil enamel, Mosquitoes/Insect repellent Paints

 

Introduction to chemicals

These are the chemical to be used in the production of emulsion paint and others. Like I said, they are readily available in the market where chemical is sold. While some like water is naturally available everywhere for free. Here is the list of some of the chemical components:
1. Water (used for mixing)

Medium Industrial paint mixer tank

2. Titherni (used only for the production of white paint)
3. Calcium carbonate (Calcium)
4. Colourite
5. P.V.A
6. Formalin
7. Nitrosol
8. Ammonia
9. Hydrosol
10. Marble dust
11. Acrydext
Others include
12. Geniple
13. K14
14. Bama cork

 

Functions of the chemicals

 1. water

Water is used to mix all the chemicals together. It must not be a hot water. You can use any type of clean and neat water with normal water temperature. However, I prefer soft water to cold water. It helps to mix the paints more easily.

 

2. Titherni

It is whitening chemical in powdery form. You can always get it where they are selling paint chemical, or rather industrial chemical. Just ask of titherni it will be given to you. It performs the function of making sure that you with paint is shining and not dull. This is the secret of some big names in painting industry. We shall give you the ratio down the line. It is only used when you are producing with paint. That does not mean you cannot use it in other colours but the function is more significant in white paints.

 

3. Calcium Carbonate

This chemical is also in powdery form. It is packaged in bags and they write CalCo on it. It is made by so many companies, I would not like to advertise any but just ask of calcium and it will be given to you.
Now calcium carbonate is of two or types
We have delomite and cacite. Both are good but delomite is recommended if you are producing pure white paint and cacite is better in off white (dirty white) paint.

 

4. Colourite

This is the most important of the entire course. It involves the ability of mixing some colours to get a desired result. It is not difficult at all if you have initiative and artistic eye. These are the colours we have in raw form ( please permit me to call them primary colours because all other colours in the painting industry is gotten from them). They are: yellow ( we painters call it cream), Red, Black, Blue, and Green. All other colours are gotten from a combination of one or two of these.

What about White paint? You might ask. Well we do not need to have a pure white colour because, we make our paints with CalCo and it gives us white naturally. In fact once you put your calcium in water you get white paint. I hope that is clear.

 

Important Facts about Colours

We shall cover how to mix the paints to get particular result. But for now just know that colours can be found in paste or oxide. When we say colours are in paste we mean that they are in condensed liquid form (like your pomade), when they are in oxide it means they are in dust form (like your wife’s powder). A colour like cream has both oxide and paste. Red and black are mostly in oxide, green and Blue are in paste. For those who might be wondering which one to use between the yellow oxide and yellow paste, I suggest that if you want the colour you are producing to be deep yellow like MTN colour, you should use paste, otherwise use oxide.
CAUTION: you MUST dilute the colours very well with a little water before you apply it to your paint. For example if you get a red oxide, pour a cup of water in a different container mix thoroughly. If not, your paint will be having dotted stains as you roll it on the wall.

 

5. P.V.A.

This chemical is very important. I guess you might have seen a situation where after painting a building, when you rub your hand on the surface it will be dusting. That is as a result of ill usage of this liquid formed chemical. In my experience, some big names in the painting industry do not even know how to use it. But you not worry, I will tell you and who know you might become their next consultant.

 

Scale of production

Medium Industrial Mixer Tank

 

Small Scale

To make paint on a small scale, you don’t need a factory, you don’t even need electricity, all you need to do is buy the ingredients and mix them. The mixing can be done by hand or you can purchase a portable electric mixer. It is that easy! Total start-up costs could be lower than 200,000 naira. Just make sure that your product is good quality!

 

Medium Scale

For this type of production, you will need a small factory, equipment such as, a mixing tank, sand mill and paint filter machine to produce large volumes of paint in the least amount of time and a truck for delivery. You would need a few employees to handle to equipment and deliver the paint. Start-up costs could be between 2 and 10 million naira.

 

Large Scale

For large scale production, you will have to purchase an automated Paint production plant. It is expensive, but any serious business person will reap massive rewards from his/her investment in no time. The start-up cost for this would be above 15 million naira.

One 20 litre bucket of paint goes for about 14 – 25,000 naira depending on the brand. If you produce 100 litres per day, that amounts to 70,000 naira every day (assuming 14,000 as the price). In a month, you would have made 2.1 million naira. In a year, that amounts to a whopping 22.2 million naira. At this rate, in a year you would have made your money back with extra to pay any recurrent expenditure. In a few years, you would have made the money back in multiples.

 

Marketing

Regardless of the scale of production, you need to develop a good marketing strategy that will bring customers to you and great customer service to keep them with you. You can sell to the paint wholesalers and retailers around you.
Remember, making the paint is the easy part, the part that requires work is selling it. Be at ease though, most of the work is at the beginning because once you’ve established a market and have good quality, the customers will keep coming back.
You can start small and scale up as time passes, or you can start big. Either ways, paint production is a great way to multiply your investments in Nigeria.