Spread of sup­ply bot­tle­necks widens

In recent weeks, more and more raw mate­r­i­al sup­pli­ers are report­ing lim­it­ed mate­r­i­al avail­abil­i­ty. Orders are con­firmed with­out a fixed and bind­ing deliv­ery date and raw mate­ri­als are sub­ject to quo­tas. Deliv­ery times are extend­ed by up to four months, depend­ing on the material.

In the case of rub­ber com­pounds and plas­tic gran­u­lates, all mar­ket par­tic­i­pants assume, sim­i­lar to steel, an immi­nent Euro­pean sup­ply prob­lem, which results from reduced pro­duc­tion capac­i­ties of the poly­mer indus­try, the sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er rub­ber pro­duc­tion in the last year, as well as a dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly increased demand from the Asian region. For these rea­sons, we are exam­in­ing all alter­na­tives and remain in close con­tact with our sup­pli­ers in order to ease the situation.