News from Notch Consulting, Inc.

November 24, 2008

“The worst I have ever seen . . .”

Filed under: Carbon Black, General, Rubber Chemicals, Silica, Tire Cord, Tires — Notch @ 9:16 am

That’s a carbon black supplier’s assessment of the current US market.

In another sign of uncertainty, tire companies are delaying finalizing their annual supply contracts with raw material suppliers for their North and South American plants. Most other years, contracts have already been locked down by Thanksgiving. This year, I am hearing that contracts may not be finalized until late December or even into January. This makes it tougher for raw material suppliers to determine what next quarter (and next year) will look like. But across the board, I am hearing that volumes will be down significantly.

Leave a Comment »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress.com.

%d bloggers like this: