Rubber Futures Track Crude’s Advance, Increase to Two-Week High

By Rattaphol Onsanit

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Natural rubber futures advanced to the highest level in almost two weeks and were set for a second quarterly rise after oil prices gained, boosting the cost of making the synthetic substitute.

Prices in Tokyo rose as much as 3.4 percent, tracking crude, which gained to an eight-month high as the dollar declined. Synthetic rubber is made from naphtha, which is distilled from petroleum.

“Rubber is following the sentiment toward oil,” Rewat Yenchai, an analyst at Bangkok-based AGROW Enterprise Ltd., said by phone today.

The December-delivery contract, the most active, increased 3 percent to 162.2 yen a kilogram ($1,691 a metric ton) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange at 11:40 a.m. local time. Earlier, it reached 162.9 yen, highest since June 17.

Rubber futures have gained about 5.7 percent this quarter on speculation demand may revive as the global economy recovers. Prices climbed about 13 percent in the first three months of the year after plunging 46 percent in the final quarter of 2008.

Crude oil for August has gained as much as 6.1 percent this week, buoyed by the weaker dollar and after Nigerian militants shut an oil field operated by Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Prices today climbed to more than $73 a barrel.

Rubber for November delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, the most-active contract, gained 1.2 percent to 15,690 yuan ($2,296) a ton at 10:40 a.m. local time.

Japan’s Yokohama Rubber Co. may post an operating loss of about 1.5 billion yen ($15.6 million) for the quarter ending today on lower sales, the Nikkei English News reported, without saying how it obtained the information.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rattaphol Onsanit in Bangkok at ronsanit@bloomberg.net