European car sales trough may have passed for SBR makers
ERJ staff report (BC)
London – Styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) producers have some reason to hope the bottom may have been reached in European car sales, but should expect any subsequent recovery in tyre sales to be a drawn-out process, investment bank Wood & Company told Will Conroy of ICIS on Monday.
Wood’s analysts looked at what the April 2013 passenger car registration data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) – showing registrations up 1.7 percent year on year, the first increase since September 2011 – could mean for a recovery in European SBR demand.
European car sales remained depressed but “should the year on year improvement develop into a sustained trend over the following months, we would expect tyre demand to follow suit,” Wood’s chemical industry analyst Piotr Drozd is reported to have said.
“This, in turn, could imply the onset of the long-awaited rebound in European SBR demand. But given the current macro environment, we expect that the potential recovery is likely to be a gradual and lengthy process,” he added.
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Full story by ICIS
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