This article was first published in the July edition of our monthly Tire industry Intelligence report It was accompanied by a series of other articles on sustainable natural rubber and how the tire industry can do more to limit deforestation in the Mekong basin and elsewhere. GM gets serious about de-forestation and tires In May
I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Prasanth Warrier of Rubber Machinery World last week in his Know a Rubber Leader series. The interview is in full on his website, but I thought I’d re-print two of the ten questions he asked me here, as a bit of a teaser for his full article.
Today’s announcement that Yokohama and Nippon Zeon have successfully made isoprene monomer from micro-organisms set me thinking about bio-tech in the rubber industry. I first reported on the use of micro-organisms to make isoprene back in 2008 when Goodyear announced its cooperation with Genencor. Genencor subsequently became part of DuPont. Since then, Goodyear has gone
Downward. Natural rubber (NR) is in mid- to long-term structural over-capacity right now, and the situation is made worse by the short- to mid-term turmoil in China’s tire industry. I’m not saying anything new here. The trade has been awash with speculation about how far down the price of rubber can go for the last
A perfect storm of negative conditions is driving huge changes in China’s tire industry, causing a meltdown in profitability and output among Chinese tire makers. Desperate Chinese tire makers are driving sharp price falls in almost every tire market and simultaneously forcing down prices of raw materials, notably natural and synthetic rubber. In dollar terms,
Thailand’s Agriculture Ministry plans to release 200,000 tons of rubber stock in an effort to prevent oversupply as the new rubber tapping season is approaching. According to Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Yukol Limlaemthong, the ministry is set to unload huge stocks of rubber products, adding that it is better that the
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