Tyre industry offtake of Indian NR, SR drops

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Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 20: At a time when rubber prices are flickering in a Rs 85-95 per kilo band, the Indian tyre industry has eased its offtake of Indian rubber. Besides natural rubber (NR), synthetic rubber (SR) too got the feel of the tyre industry looking the other way.

The tyre sector utilised only 73% of India’s NR consumption in the peak period (April to August) in 2007, say estimates based on the statistics with the Rubber Board. In the previous year in the same period, the tyre industry had hogged as much as 76% of NR consumption.

NR consumption in the April to August period in 2007 was 3,47,915 tonne. Of this, only 2,00,805 tonne went to auto tyre manufacturers, according to the Rubber Statistical News (Vol 66, No 5).

Sythetic rubber offtake also shows a matching drop. The tyre sector utilised only 51.5% of SR consumption in April-August period in 2007. In the same period in 2006, the SR utilisation was as high as 54.7%.

Industry sources told FE that while major players like MRF Tyres have been importing against their advance licenses, smaller tyre players have been bleeding in building their raw material inventory. Almost predictably, imports in the corresponding period are up, by almost one-third.