Notch reports on SanDiego Carbon black meeting

ERJ staff report (DS)

San Diego, California - Carbon Black World organised by Smithers Rapra has now finished, but a personal report on the event has been posted by Paul Ita, the brains behind Notch Consulting.

He writes: “Notch Consulting presented a paper on supply/demand dynamics in the carbon black industry. After a solid first quarter, 2012 is proving to be a challenging year for the carbon black industry, especially in Europe, where the debt crisis put the brakes on what had been a sturdy recovery coming out of the 2009 recession. The North American market also is expected to see volume declines in 2012 as a robust OEM passenger tyre market cannot fully offset a weaker replacement tyre market. Still, global volumes are forecast to rise nearly 2% in 2012, driven by gains in Asia, especially China. Long-term forecasts (2011-2015) are for solid volume growth of 4%-5%/year at the global level, though, again, most of this gain is attributable to China, where volumes are expected to rise 7% per year. Gains in North America and Europe are pegged at 1%-2%/year through 2015, driven by substantial new investment in tyre production capacity.”

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Blog Post (and photographs of local wildlife) from Notch