Natural rubber and butadiene rubber are the substitution yardstick up and down the tire chain. Natural rubber at ¥19,455/t and butadiene rubber at ¥15,505/t leave a spread of ¥3,950/t at a multi-year high, reflecting a dual-track split: natural rubber disturbed by regional weather and warehouse-receipt roll-over, synthetic rubber eased by ample butadiene supply.

For downstream buyers, a wide spread raises the economy of substituting synthetic for natural rubber in formulations, but performance specs and certification thresholds must be weighed; meanwhile the delivered cost of imported latex tracks USD/CNY (6.708), where every 1% FX move maps directly onto purchase price.

The operator should front-run inventory positioning and formula switches: lift the synthetic-rubber blend exposure when natural-rubber premium is excessive, and smooth import cadence via bonded-warehouse transshipment to avoid chasing one side. On SNSUC, rubber sits alongside crude and fuel oil among the 13 operating categories and can be pledged and hedged across varieties under one digital-receipt system.

Source: SNSUC platform public/data/market.json intraday snapshot (updated 2026-09-10 14:46).