Purchase of Tire Giants Intensifies Tension in Rubber Supply

Shanghai May Rubber Futures May contract rose 2.21% in early trading on the 12th. Some signs indicate that economic growth in Europe and the United States is accelerating. The focus of the commodity market has shifted from the macro-control of the Chinese government to the economic recovery of developed countries. Chinese tire companies have to compete with international tire giants for the limited supply of raw materials in Southeast Asia, resulting in price continuation. rise.

On the 10th, the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) February crude oil futures contract settled higher at $1.86, or 2.08%, to settle at $91.11 a barrel. TransAlaskaPipeline is still closed and 12% of US capacity is idle. Norwegian oil and gas producer Statoil said that an oil field in the North Sea was closed due to the occurrence of natural gas leakage. The market's worries about the interruption of crude oil supply support the rise of crude oil. Recently, cold weather has been boosting the demand for heating oil. The U.S. Meteorological Service predicts that the total U.S. heating demand is expected to be 10.5% higher than normal this week. This will indirectly drive demand for crude oil. The rise in crude oil will increase the cost of synthetic rubber and will benefit natural rubber prices.

Weather conditions, natural rubber producing areas in Thailand, cloudy northern and southern Thailand, southern cloudy; Malaysian areas, southern Malay Peninsula cloudy, northern Kalimantan rain, rainfall impacts local tapping production; Indonesian origin, Sumatra north of the equator Cloudy, Sumatra is cloudy south of the equator, cloudy south of Kalimantan; China, Hainan light rain, Yunnan cloudy weather.

Asian spot market, the previous trading day, prices rose. Due to strong demand, rubber procurement activities of large tire manufacturers remain active despite rising rubber prices. Bridgestone bought Thailand's RSS3 grade rubber for February delivery at US$5,300 per ton FOB. On the 12th, the official quotation for FOB Malaysia's SMR in May was significantly higher in the morning.

In other respects, the Bank for International Settlements held a bimonthly regular meeting of central bank presidents and a global economic conference in Basel to analyze the global economic situation. After the meeting, Trichet, chairman of the Global Economic Conference, said that the major central bank officials from all countries in the world were convinced that the global economy began to recover and its momentum was faster than expected. Not long ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stated that the US economy has finally begun to accelerate its recovery. These signals show that the global economic outlook remains positive and that the demand for commodities in developed countries is expected to continue to rise.

On the whole, there may be some changes in the economic situation. In 2009 to 10 years, emerging markets took the lead in recovering and brought the global economy back on the rise. These countries have found that the inflation situation has become the primary problem and introduced austerity measures. The recovery of the developed countries is slow, but some signals show that the economic growth of the United States and the EU may accelerate again. The domestic commodity futures market was once nervous about the government's regulation and control measures, but began to follow the international market more and changed, and got some support from it. For natural rubber varieties, the most important issue is still the shortage of spot supply. As the demand in Europe and the United States continues to rise, the frequency of international tire manufacturers in Southeast Asia has increased. These companies have considerable profits and have higher tolerance to raw material prices. In the face of limited resources, Chinese tire companies have to follow the approach and raw materials are even more in short supply.