London – Producer-country predictions of a recovery in natural rubber prices due to imminent supply shortages have done little to lift market sentiment in recent weeks.
NR futures prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed at Yuan11,665/tonne on 28 Sept for January 2016 contracts – by far the most traded NR contract.
This marked a decline of just under 1 percent on the week before, as the market remained in relatively stable territory compared to recent months.
In Tokyo, however, back-month NR prices on the Tocom exchange closed at Yen166.1/kg, 3.6 percent lower than the prior-week level.
Meanwhile, the rubber price index on the Japanese commodity exchange came in at 75.88 – a 6.1-percent decline on the previous month.
On the Bangkok exchange, meanwhile, prices for RSS3 grade fell 5.6 percent to $130.80/100kg between 18-30 Sept.
Over the same period, prices for SMR20 grade rubber prices fell 1.2 percent on the Kuala Lumpur exchange to $124.85/100kg.
Commenting on the NR market recently, new chief executive of the International Rubber Consortium (IRCo), Samiah Ahmad said analysts were over-estimating rubber stock levels.
“The decrease of natural rubber production… particularly the production in Thailand and India, would lead to a possible global natural rubber shortage in 2015,” added Ahmad.
