The Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) has released its Monthly Natural Rubber Statistical Report for June 2026, documenting a period of price resilience within the sector. This stability persisted despite seasonal supply improvements and firm downstream demand, set against a backdrop of significant geopolitical friction and macroeconomic volatility. The month of July presented a starkly different energy landscape compared to June, as renewed regional conflicts and major shipping route disruptions replaced the brief period of stability following the provisional reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The escalation in Middle Eastern tensions exerted considerable upward pressure on global energy markets. Brent crude oil averaged approximately USD 83.76 per barrel in July, with the spot price surging to USD 96.95 per barrel by the end of the month. This sharp increase was primarily attributed to fears of potential restrictions on oil shipments through the strategic waterway, amplifying supply risks and embedding a higher risk premium within oil pricing structures.

Physical natural rubber prices exhibited divergent trends across major grades during the month. The Kuala Lumpur market saw SMR-20 average USD 2.22 per kilogramme, representing a month-on-month decline, while STR-20 in Bangkok followed a similar downward trajectory. RSS-3 also registered a decrease, contrasting with RSS-4, which posted a notable gain. Latex-in-bulk prices softened over the same period. Trade flows showed mixed results, as Chinese imports contracted, while significant import growth was recorded for India, Viet Nam and Malaysia. On the export front, shipments from Thailand, Viet Nam and Malaysia advanced, whereas Cambodia and Indonesia experienced moderate declines.

For the full year 2026, the ANRPC projects global production to expand by over two percent to reach 15.279 million tonnes, driven primarily by anticipated increases in Thailand, China, India and Malaysia. However, on a monthly comparative basis, July 2026 production is estimated to be over five percent lower than the same month in the previous year, though seasonal recovery is expected in key producer nations. Global demand is forecast to grow modestly by 0.4 percent for the year, with consumption in July rising year-on-year, supported by robust tyre manufacturing and electric vehicle-related demand, as well as a strong manufacturing performance and record auto sales in India.

Currency valuations saw the Malaysian ringgit and Thai baht trade within defined ranges against the US dollar. Futures markets reflected the mixed sentiment, with the SHFE September 2026 contract averaging 16,802.61 CNY per tonne, while the SGX September 2026 contract averaged USD 2.14 per kilogramme, both registering month-on-month declines. The overall data suggests a market navigating the complex interplay of supply recovery, shifting trade dynamics and persistent geopolitical uncertainty.

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Birla Carbon has confirmed a price increase of up to 15 percent for its Speciality Materials products across Asia, scheduled to take effect on 1 October 2026. The company pointed to significant and sustained rises in feedstock costs, driven partly by ongoing geopolitical instability and disruptions in global feedstock markets, as the reason behind the adjustment.

Although Birla Carbon pursued operational efficiencies, supply chain optimisation and disciplined cost management to soften the impact, the scale and persistence of the cost escalation left a price adjustment unavoidable. The company's sales teams will engage customers directly to explain the details and help them navigate the transition.

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ACE Laboratories, an independent ISO/IEC 17025-accredited polymer testing laboratory, has partnered with Abdallah Consulting, LLC, a prominent tyre pyrolysis advisory firm, to introduce VericarbSM. This independent certification programme verifies that materials marketed as recovered carbon black (rCB) meet established criteria for rCB.

Recovered carbon black, derived from end-of-life tyres via pyrolysis, serves as a sustainable substitute for virgin carbon black in rubber and polymer applications. However, the emerging market has lacked the standardisation and independent verification that established supply chains provide. VericarbSM addresses this gap through independent material characterisation and rubber performance data, offering stakeholders a consistent basis for evaluating rCB products.

For producers, certification accelerates market entry and improves buyer approval rates. Consumers gain more capable suppliers and reduced evaluation time, while investors benefit from clearer volume sizing and fewer costly test failures. The programme is jointly administered by both organisations.

Erick Sharp, CEO, ACE Laboratories, said, “The rCB market has enormous potential, but growth has been held back by uncertainty about material quality and consistency. VericarbSM gives producers a way to prove their product and gives buyers the independent data they need to say yes.”

Dave Abdallah, Founder, Abdallah Consulting, said, “One key reason for the delayed growth of recovered carbon black is lack of product performance information in the customer’s language. ASTM standards are critical; in fact, most testing done in the process follows ASTM methods. But customers relate to a product better when its performance is shown in applications relevant to them. VericarbSM solves the language issue by showing verified rCB in terms of rubber performance while simultaneously adding credibility via third-party analysis and reporting.”

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Zeon Corporation established Zeon Chemicals Kurashiki Co., Ltd. on 23 July 2026 to take over the acrylic rubber operations of fellow group firm Tohpe Corporation. The new entity, headquartered in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture, is wholly owned by Zeon with paid-in capital of JPY 10 million and is led by representative Koji Minami.

On 21 August, Tohpe and the new subsidiary signed an absorption-type company split agreement, prompting Zeon to begin the procedures required under the Companies Act. Operations at the new company, focused on manufacturing and selling acrylic rubber and related activities, are scheduled to commence on 30 October 2026.

Acrylic rubber, known for its heat resistance, is used in automotive components including oil seals and hoses. The Zeon Group already maintains four production sites across Japan, United States and Thailand, forming a global supply network for the material.

The restructuring follows Zeon’s 11 May 2026 announcement that it would transfer Tohpe shares to NATOCO Co., Ltd. of Miyoshi City, Aichi Prefecture, as part of Tohpe’s paints business divestiture. Tohpe’s acrylic rubber operations, which complement Zeon’s Elastomers Business, will now be positioned as a key specialty rubber manufacturing site, with closer operational coordination intended to strengthen Group competitiveness and corporate value.

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The company is betting that a polymer manufactured from end-of-life truck tyres can disrupt the market for petroleum-based styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS), a widely used road-binding additive whose pricing and availability are tied to global oil markets. After completing a live road trial with Road Science and Auckland Transport in New Zealand, the company is preparing to use the results as a springboard for expansion into Australia and Sub-Saharan Africa, positioning the recycled material as a lower-cost, lower-carbon alternative to virgin polymers.

New Zealand-based Revyre Global Limited is positioning a polymer manufactured from end-of-life truck tyres as a lower-cost alternative to petroleum-based styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) after completing a live road trial with Road Science and Auckland Transport in New Zealand.

The company has spent several years developing the product as a direct replacement for SBS. Unlike conventional tyre-derived asphalt, which relies on crumb rubber, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Shaun Zukor told Tyre Trends that its proprietary thermomechanical process produces a remanufactured polymer with blending characteristics similar to SBS, allowing it to be used in existing asphalt infrastructure.

“Our primary objective was to develop a drop-in replacement for SBS, which is a petroleum-derived synthetic polymer,” Zukor said. “SBS is expensive, made from virgin materials and is widely used to improve road durability, fatigue resistance and overall pavement performance.”

The company began engaging Road Science, a division of Downer, and Auckland Transport after completing laboratory validation with engineering consultancy WSP in New Zealand.

Before approaching customers, it invested around 18 months in laboratory testing to validate the material’s performance.

Following successful laboratory trials, Road Science carried out its own evaluations before, together with Auckland Transport, deciding to trial the material on Blockhouse Bay Road, one of Auckland’s busiest roads.

The project then underwent another lengthy approval process involving Auckland Council and scientific advisers.

“It took another year to a year and a half to obtain all the necessary approvals from the council and its scientific advisors,” Zukor said. “They wanted to verify that all the claims in our technical literature were accurate.”

Construction of the trial road took place over three days in March and the company expects to receive the first performance data around September. Those results are expected to support commercialisation in overseas markets.

“Our business is focused only on New Zealand at the moment because we’re using it as a proof of concept,” Zukor said. “Once those results are available, we’ll publish them. That will place us in a much stronger position to take the product into Australia and Sub-Saharan Africa.”

The company estimates that entering Australia would take another 12 to 18 months after trial results are available and a planned New Zealand manufacturing facility becomes operational.

Although the current road project used only a small quantity of material because it is a demonstration, Zukor said the commercial opportunity could expand significantly.

“We used a relatively small amount of material for this particular project, but if the opportunity grows as expected, supplying the Auckland Transport network alone could eventually consume between 40–50 percent of our production capacity,” he noted.

MATERIAL ECONOMICS

The company currently manufactures the material primarily from truck and bus radial (TBR) tyres and earthmover tyres because of the higher natural rubber content.

While the SBS substitute represents the company’s immediate focus, it has divided its broader product portfolio into three categories. Revpol A, manufactured mainly from passenger and light truck tyres is intended for lower-performance rubber products such as rubber tiles, shoe soles and conveyor belts.

Revpol B targets asphalt applications and new tyre manufacturing, while Revpol C, produced largely from earthmover tyres, is designed for higher-performance applications.

The company is not currently manufacturing at its own facility but plans a new production unit in New Zealand. Until that facility is operational, product for trials is being supplied by its Canadian partner.

The technology relies primarily on a thermomechanical recycling process rather than chemical recycling. Whole tyres are broken down with steel separated from the rubber before the rubber is processed to a 30-mesh particle size and passed through Revyre’s proprietary thermomechanical process.

Zukor said only a very small amount of non-toxic, FDA-approved chemicals are used and that the process is driven primarily by operating parameters rather than chemical reactions.

He added that one of the key advantages of the technology is that it can be incorporated into existing SBS blending infrastructure with minimal changes as most development work focused on determining the optimum blending ratio rather than overcoming technical limitations.

“The primary technical challenges relate to the blending ratio,” he said, adding, “The higher the percentage of Revpol you add, the higher the temperatures and shear forces required in the bitumen blending terminals.”

Although the company has successfully blended as much as 20 percent Revpol into bitumen during development, Zukor said performance gains diminish beyond a certain point.

It has identified an optimum blend of between 5 percent and 10 percent depending on the application, ranging from conventional roads to heavy-duty pavements and airport runways.

“Any facility that currently blends SBS using its existing infrastructure can also blend our product using that same infrastructure,” he said.

CATALYST FOR SAVINGS

Zukor believes the material can reduce both costs and environmental impacts while improving pavement performance.

“We want to create a product that is environmentally sustainable, has an abundant raw material supply and is 20–40 percent cheaper than virgin materials while also having a significantly lower carbon footprint,” he stated.

Laboratory testing has produced encouraging results. According to Zukor, New Zealand’s wheel-tracking standard requires materials to withstand 800,000 load cycles, while Revyre’s product continued to perform until testing was halted at two million cycles.

“Our product achieved nearly two to three times the required wheel-tracking performance compared with standard bitumen,” he noted.

He also added that the objective is to produce road surfaces that are less expensive, more durable and environmentally sustainable while simultaneously addressing the challenge of managing end-of-life tyres.

“We believe this product ticks all of those boxes and have obtained a patent for it,” he said.

MANUFACTURING SCALABILITY

Although the company is currently relying on manufacturing capacity in Canada, Zukor said its modular production model could support significant expansion once commercial demand develops.

“We can currently produce up to 10,000 tonnes of this product, but because our production facilities are modular, capacity can easily be scaled anywhere from 1,000 tonnes to 50,000 tonnes, depending on market demand and the requirements of a particular region,” said Zukor.

Once the planned New Zealand facility becomes operational, Zukor expects its tyre feedstock to be supplied through Tirewise, the country’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme for end-of-life tyres.

Under the programme, every imported tyre attracts a levy that funds incentives for registered collectors, processors and end users to move tyres through the approved recycling chain. Zukor said Revyre intends to register again as a processor after commissioning its new plant.

GOING PAST HURDLES

Zukor acknowledged that customer adoption remains the biggest hurdle. Road contractors also need to validate new formulations through laboratory testing before incorporating them into their pavement designs. Hence, Revyre is focusing on multinational contractors already operating in New Zealand to accelerate adoption, believing successful validation locally could support deployment elsewhere within those organisations.

He also believes global dependence on petroleum-derived SBS strengthens the case for tyre-derived alternatives.

“If you look at SBS, it’s already a product that’s in very high demand globally. Because it’s petroleum-based, its availability and pricing are heavily influenced by global macro-economic and geopolitical events,” Zukor said.

He said the company’s commercial proposition rests on three principles viz-a-viz consistent quality, supply and pricing.

According to Zukor, replacing virgin SBS with tyre-derived polymers could help localise supply chains, reduce exposure to petroleum price volatility and improve environmental outcomes while lowering costs for road owners.

Beyond New Zealand, Revyre is also evaluating opportunities in North America through its Canadian partner and is exploring future markets for tyre-derived materials.

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