Japan Nationalized the Chemical Before the Blockade Hit

Japanese photoresist suppliers notified Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix in April of a solvent shortfall tied to naphtha cut off by the Hormuz blockade.

Naphtha spot prices in Japan averaged $568 per ton in Q4 2025, then recovered to $699 in Q1 2026. The blockade's first month pushed spot to $1,190 per ton as six of Japan's twelve cracking centers cut output. PGME and PGMEA, propylene-derived solvents that form the carrier phase in most photoresist formulations, ran short as propylene supply collapsed downstream.

Switching to a new photoresist supplier requires a twelve-month product change notification. Chipmakers hold roughly six months of safety stock, per Morningstar analyst Phelix Lee.

Japan's Supply Order

Four Japanese companies supply roughly 95 percent of EUV photoresist globally: TOK, JSR, Shin-Etsu Chemical, and Fujifilm. TOK and JSR together hold roughly 91 percent of the overall photoresist market, with JSR at 19 percent individually as of 2025.

JSR was taken private on June 25, 2024, when Japan Investment Corporation paid roughly ¥1 trillion under a mandate framed around national economic security. Within nine months, JIC stripped JSR's biotech unit and sold non-core materials businesses to Resonac and Tokuyama. In April 2025, JIC installed CEO Tetsuro Hori, who cited speed as the operating principle for a company now focused entirely on semiconductor materials.

In May 2026, while the solvent crisis ran, JSR announced its first Taiwan production facility in joint venture at TSMC's direct request, citing geopolitical factors. Before JIC, JSR had been simultaneously managing a biotech business and a materials portfolio. The divestiture completed in early 2025 was the precondition for moving this fast.

Samsung's Two-Front Problem

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are the named customers for JSR's Korea MOR facility, qualifying tin-based resist for 1c DRAM since the plant's November 2024 announcement. TSMC carries diversified supplier relationships and a dedicated Taiwan co-development facility arriving in 2028. Samsung's certification path runs through the same Japanese suppliers that issued the April warning, with no alternative certifiable in the twelve-month window a switch requires.

The National Samsung Electronics Union set an eighteen-day walkout from May 21, after pay talks collapsed. JPMorgan Chase estimates the walkout could cut annual operating profit by 40 trillion won.

JIC ownership forces a distinction the acquisition framing obscured: changing who JSR answers to changed decision speed, not photoresist lead times. The Korea MOR plant won't deliver commercial-scale supply before end 2026; Samsung's solvent buffer runs to October.

JSR's Korea facility opens at end 2026. Samsung's solvent clock runs to October. The roughly ten weeks between those dates is the first concrete test of what JIC's mandate bought Japan.