With the tyre industry witnessing acute shortage of carbon black for the past several months, members of the Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) have offered to pick up the entire stock of the raw material available in the country.

ATMA’s reaction comes in the wake of carbon black manufacturers stating that there was no shortage and production was in surplus of domestic demand. ATMA has asked the carbon black manufacturers body to disclose the stock that is available for off-take. The assertion by carbon black manufacturers about surplus carbon black is in sharp variance to market realities. Even non- tyre rubber industries have expressed serious concern over non-availability of carbon black. As communicated by the rubber industry body, as many as 1,000 rubber units have threatened to shut down operations in view of paucity of carbon black. “Certainly there wouldn’t have been so much of agitation if availability was normal,” said Mohan Kurian, Convener, Supply Chain and Resources (SCR) Group of ATMA.

According to ATMA, if the crunch in carbon black continues, it will lead to 10 per cent drop in capacity utilisation in tyre production during the current quarter. There is need to curb the export of carbon black from the country so that domestic demand is met and tyre production is not affected. The tyre industry is left with no choice but to import carbon black to meet domestic deficit. However, the steep anti-dumping duty of about 40 per cent on imports was making such duty paid imports almost prohibitive.

ATMA has sought the Commerce Ministry’s intervention to resolve the situation as unplanned cuts in tyre production arising from shortfall in carbon black availability will lead to higher imports of finished tyres.

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