News from Notch Consulting, Inc.

March 4, 2021

Carbon Black Asia Webinar coming next week

Filed under: Carbon Black, Conferences, Coronavirus/COVID-19, General — Notch @ 6:00 am

Notch is participating in a webinar scheduled for Wednesday, March 10. The webinar will consist of three presentations covering the current carbon black and carbon black feedstock situation in Asia: Paul Ita of Notch Consulting will cover Asia Carbon Black Supply/Demand; Shane Perl of ALPEN Group will cover feedstocks; and Martin von Wolfersdorff of Wolfersdorff Consulting will cover customer mapping in Asia and green carbons. After the presentations we will have a short discussion followed by question/answer. The pricing for the webinar is a very affordable €29. The start time on March 10th, 2021 at 06h00 (Berlin), 10h30 (Dehli), 13h00 (Shanghai), 14h00 (Tokyo), 16h00 (Sydney), 0h00 (New York). If that time does not suit you, you can watch the replay recording any time. You can find more information and register here.

October 12, 2020

Carbon Black World conference postponed to 2021

Filed under: Carbon Black, Conferences, Coronavirus/COVID-19 — Notch @ 9:53 pm

The Carbon Black World 2020 conference, which was originally scheduled to be held November 10-12, 2020 in Charlotte, North Carolina, has been postponed to a still-to-be determined date in 2021 due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Smithers, the organizer, made the announcement on October 8. The Carbon Black World conference is held every other year and typically moves back and forth between Europe and North America. The last CBW conference was held in September 2018 in Dusseldorf, Germany. Smithers plans to hold a number of webinars dedicated to carbon black in the coming weeks. Details to follow as they become available.

September 23, 2020

Tire Tech Expo delayed until June 2021

Filed under: Carbon Black, Conferences, Coronavirus/COVID-19, General — Notch @ 8:32 pm

Tire Technology Expo, originally scheduled to be held at the Deutsche Messe, Hannover in March 2021, has been rescheduled to June 8-10, 2021, as a result of the still fluid Covid-19 situation across Europe. In addition to the in-person Expo coming in June, the group is planning several Virtual Conferences and Virtual Technology Showcases, which will be announced shortly. 

Last week, the group successfully held the Testing Expo China Automotive show in Shanghai, which attracted 230 exhibitor stands and 8,000 visitors over three days.

 

 

August 26, 2020

Recovered Carbon Black Congress coming in September

Due to ongoing concerns about COVID-19, this year’s Recovered Carbon Black Congress will be an entirely virtual event. The conference will take place over two 4-hour conference days on 9 & 10 September, commencing at 13:00 BST / 14:00 CEST / 08:00 EDT and will be streamed live via an all-in-one online event platform. Delegates will have the opportunity to gain perspective from key experts in the industry, schedule 1-1 meetings with fellow delegates, engage in real-time discussions, get answers to questions, and access recorded presentations. Notch will be presenting on Day One. 

Here is the conference agenda.

August 14, 2020

Conti expects slight recovery for remainder of 2020

Filed under: Auto, Coronavirus/COVID-19, General, Tires — Notch @ 12:49 pm

Continental A.G.’s tire group expects a slight recovery in the tire market for the remainder of 2020, despite suffering a 23 percent drop in first-half sales revenue,

Rubber & Plastic News reports that Conti attributes decline in sales volumes for passenger and light truck tires to the negative impact the COVID-19 pandemic.

The German group said it expects demand for replacement tires for cars and light commercial vehicles to “normalize” in the third quarter, although that means volumes in Europe will be 10 percent to 15 percent lower than a year ago and 5 percent to 10 percent lower in North America.

U.S. auto sales outlook is still low, but shows improvement

Filed under: Auto, Coronavirus/COVID-19, General — Notch @ 12:45 pm

Rubber & Plastic News reports that the outlook for auto sales for the remainder of 2020 is better than it was a few months ago, though far from a banner year.

A recovery began almost as abruptly as things fell apart in the spring, according to analysts who gave an economic overview of light-vehicle production and sales in a Zoom presentation Aug. 5 during the Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars

But it will take that recovery a long time to get back to the 17 million-plus U.S. sales levels of previous years.

IHS Markit is calling for light vehicle sales of 13.3 million this year, compared with 17.1 million last year.

July 17, 2020

COVID causes steep drop in European replacement tire sales in 2Q

Filed under: Coronavirus/COVID-19, Tires — Notch @ 6:13 pm

On July 14, the European Tyre and Rubber Manufacturers’ Association (ETRMA) released data for its members replacement tire sales for the second quarter of 2020. The figures show that the COVID-19 pandemic caused the worst sales results in the history of ETRMA.

Comparing the second quarter of 2020 to Q2 2019, passenger car tires sales declined by 31%, while the decline for the first half of 2020 was 22%. In truck tires, Q2 sales declined 23%, while sale for the first half of 2020 were down 14%. Agricultural tires fared the best, seeing a decline of just 4% in Q2 and 9% for the first half of 2020.

After having been shut for an average of 33 days due to Covid-19, all tyre manufacturers in Europe slowly resumed their production in May when most European countries eased their lockdowns. As a result, there was a slight upward trend in tyre replacement sales visible towards the end of the quarter. Whether this trend will hold remains to be seen in the coming months. Being a global industry, the recovery of the tyre sector is not just dependent on Europe’s situation but how other parts of the world and global trade routes continue to be impacted by and address the pandemic.

 

EU auto registrations down 38% in first half of 2020

Filed under: Auto, Coronavirus/COVID-19 — Notch @ 5:49 pm

On July 16, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association released data on registrations of new passenger cars in the EU for June and for the first half of 2020. For the first six months of 2020, registrations were down 38.1% relative to the same period of 2018. Declines for the individual months are below:

  • January: -7.5%
  • February: -7.4%
  • March: -55.1%
  • April: -76.3%
  • May: -52.3%
  • June: -22.3%

Over the first half of 2020, EU demand for new passenger cars contracted by 38.1%, the result of four consecutive months of unprecedented declines across the region. Among the four major EU markets, Spain saw the biggest decline (-50.9%) so far this year, followed by Italy (-46.1%), France (-38.6%) and Germany (-34.5%).

June 10, 2020

ITEC 2020 shifts to virtual event

Filed under: Conferences, Coronavirus/COVID-19 — Notch @ 9:42 pm

The next International Tire Exhibition and Conference, which is scheduled for September 8-18, 2020, will transition to a virtual event this year. The biennial conference is sponsored by Rubber & Plastics News and typically held in Akron, Ohio. The decision was made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The dates of conference remain unchanged, with a livestream covering the conference sessions, including keynote speakers, individual presentations, and panel sessions.

June 8, 2020

Goodyear forecasts 50% drop in tire volumes in Q2

Filed under: Coronavirus/COVID-19, Rubber, Tires — Notch @ 12:42 am

In a 424B filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission dated May 13, 2020, Goodyear Tire & Rubber provided an overview of its actions in response to COVID-19 and a view of the tire industry’s performance in 2020.

We currently believe that our largest volume declines will occur in the second quarter of 2020, with volumes down approximately 50% compared to the second quarter of 2019. Overhead absorption will also continue to be adversely affected by reduced plant production during the second quarter of 2020. We are currently planning for our production to be down almost 25 million units versus the second quarter of 2019 in order to reflect expected demand and to reduce inventory.

In addition, our other tire-related businesses are also being significantly affected by the weakening economic environment. Traffic and volume at our retail locations is low and the sharp drop in business and leisure travel is adversely impacting our aviation business. Our chemicals business is also feeling the effects of the decline in tire production. In total, the year-over-year earnings decline in our other tire-related businesses is expected to be about $150 million during the second quarter of 2020.

For the full year of 2020, we now expect our raw material costs will be a benefit of $50 million to $100 million compared to 2019, excluding transactional foreign currency and raw material cost saving measures. Natural and synthetic rubber prices and other commodity prices historically have been volatile, and this estimate could change significantly based on fluctuations in the cost of these and other key raw materials. We are continuing to focus on price and product mix, to substitute lower cost materials where possible, to work to identify additional substitution opportunities, to reduce the amount of material required in each tire, and to pursue alternative raw materials.

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