MUMBAI – Prices of natural rubber in Kerala rose today as the sentiment remains firm due to fresh demand from domestic stockists amid concerns about supply. Early gains in the global market further supported the uptrend in the domestic market, traders said.
Concerns about supply will remain as the lean production season has started in Kerala. India’s natural rubber production may fall, as heavy rains in Oct-Nov in Kerala, the country’s biggest producer, affected the peak tapping season, said A.M.George, the owner of St.George Rubbers based in Ernakulam.
In the global market, futures contracts of natural rubber on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange negated early gains and ended marginally lower as investors booked profit after the recent surge in prices, analysts said.
Rubber prices rose on TOCOM in early trade today on expectations of a rise in demand and on gains in the benchmark crude oil contract on New York Mercantile Exchange, analysts said.
Crude oil prices rose on the NYMEX in Asian trade as inventories in the US declined unexpectedly for the week ended Friday. Natural rubber prices take cues from crude oil as the latter is used to manufacture synthetic rubber.
The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries expects global consumption to increase 1.2% to 14.2 mln tn in 2022. The demand for natural rubber is likely to rise from the healthcare sector, as well as due to positive automobile sales growth in major economies.
Following are highlights of today’s trade:
–In the key markets of Kerala, the widely-traded RSS-4 variety was today sold at 172-173 rupees per kg, up 1 rupee from the previous day.
–The most-active August contract of rubber on the Japanese bourse ended 0.1 yen down at 252.4 yen (159.17 rupees) per kg.
Source Global Rubber Markets