Rubber auction ends on a quiet note

Friday, 13 January 2012 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Cheranka Mendis

The rubber auction this week posed yet another quiet week for the industry, with no big changes seen in the prices quoted for the stocks.

Colombo Rubber Traders’ Association (CRTA) Chairman M.S. Rahim stated that the auction posed 185,776 kgs of Crepe for offer, 36,850 kgs of skim, 65,434 kgs of sheet and 27,550 kgs of SC.

“These are cropping months, the period from December to March,” he said, “the prices remain almost unchanged since last week. However prices fell lower from the Tuesday’s auction to post lower prices in Thursday’s. This happened across all grades particularly on RSS.”

Latex Crepe 1X went for an average Rs.335 per kilo, while SC.CR 1X went for Rs. 324 per kilo. Skim rubber went for Rs.330 while RSS 1 went for Rs.352. The price changes between Crepe rubber grades were minimal. While Crepe 1X went for Rs.335, Crepe 1 went for Rs.334, Crepe 2 for Rs.333 and Crepe 3 for Rs.332.

Rahim stated that the reason behind a minimal change is that Crepe is usually priced according to the Western market.

RSS had a better deal with RSS1 going for Rs.352, RSS 2 going for Rs.348, RSS 3 going for Rs. 345 and RSS 4 going for Rs. 338. RSS 5 went unquoted. “The reason for this is, this rubber is used for the manufacturing of tyres and the local market makes use of it.”

Commenting on the slow pace of the market Rahim said, “The Chinese New Year will start on 15 January. Workers will be on holiday for another two weeks. No one will be buying during the period. The world’s biggest consumer going on holiday will affect the market.”

On the other hand the West, the bigger consumer of Crepe, is watching the movement of Euro. “They are waiting to see what will happen. We too will have to watch.”