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
This week, I want to alert you to something from under the radar: there are big changes going on in the retread sector around the world. It’s hard to get numbers on this, but I’m increasingly getting involved in conversations about the impact of imports of low-priced truck tires from China on the global retread
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,
A large-size radial tire for dump trucks in the construction and mining field has officially been released by Yokohama. The new tire is a 27.00R49 size model of its “RB42.” The tire is suitable for a wide range of off the road (OTR) surfaces. Yokohama has used an exclusive tread compound, recently developed for large-size
Michelin has opened the first phase of its new factory in Shenyang, China. The project is huge. Total investment is scheduled to be US$1500 million (1,500,000,000). It will make many kinds of tire, including the cars tires, light truck tires, truck and bus tires. Total capacity will be 12 million units/year. This is projected to
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