Cabot tracks progress of European pricing move, inventories

Boston, Massachusetts  – Cabot Corp. aims to introduce a feedstock-related pricing differential into contract negotiations in Europe in 2017 and is also planning to expand the mechanism to contracts in other regional markets.

In May, the US company increased prices on all carbon black products in its reinforcement materials segment sold in Europe, Middle East and Africa by €60-90/tonnes plus, where applicable feedstock index-related adjustments.

The move, Cabot said, reflected cost pressures and sourcing challenges for oil-derived feedstocks for the production of carbon black in the EMEA region.

The pricing measures, he said, were “impacting about 15 percent of our volumes that are not under contract."

And, while discussions with customers were “going pretty well” Keohane said this was "a structural issue" that had to be dealt with on a broader scale.

“We do certainly expect to introduce this issue into contract discussions for calendar year 2017 in Europe,” said Keohane. “And I think we’ll consider other regions as it makes sense.”

Another issue for Cabot is the state of carbon black inventories. This is particularly the case in the US, following that country’s imposition of anti-dumping duties on passenger car tires from China.

“The channel was stuffed in anticipation of those [measues] being implemented," said the Cabot boss, though he added that these inventories had “largely been worked off.

“I think we’re probably closer to natural inventory levels than certainly we were over the last 18 months or so as those passenger car duties were implemented,” he said.

Keohane, however, went on to note that a similar situation could arise with the imposition of anti-dumping duties on truck tires from China.

Comments by Sean Keohane sourced from Cabot Corp. conference call transcript, supplied by Seeking Apha.