Schunk: Fog of war clouds EU carbon black forecasts

They say that necessity is the mother of invention.

The proverb denotes a certain circularity, the notion that need drives creation and solutions are found in the face of great odds.

It may be circularity of another sort—recovered carbon black from tire pyrolysis—that helps solve a major raw material supply problem for tire manufacturers and rubber processors with facilities in Europe.

About 54 percent of the continent's production capacity of carbon black—and about one third of its overall supply—comes from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, amounts that are not easily replaced if Russia's invasion of Ukraine and resulting global sanctions choke off this raw material completely from the region.

Imports from countries outside Europe (and Russia) remain an option.

Manufacturers can look to Saudi Arabia, India and China, the latter being the world's largest producer of carbon black. But with the high price of coal tar, a main feedstock for much of the carbon black (and steel) produced in China, such imports are untenable, analysts say.

And with freight costs and other inflationary pressures that have been part of the supply chain since long before Russia invaded Ukraine, imports of legacy carbon black from the Middle East and India have their own drawbacks.

But one option that is gaining momentum outside of virgin carbon black production is recovered carbon black from tire pyrolysis, an innovative industry that has seen enormous interest as supply from eastern Europe dwindles.

"While the furnace carbon black industry requires both gas and oil for production, the tire pyrolysis industry itself is producing gas, oil and recovered carbon black from end-of-life-tires, of which Europe produces about 3.5 million tons per year," said Martin von Wolfersdorff, of Wolfersdorff Consulting in Berlin. "This is an industry that can help the European tire industry in the medium and long term."

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Sweden-based EnviroSystems said it has seen increased interest for the carbon black and pyrolysis oil that Enviro recovers from end-of-life tires.

"The increased interest has been observed among old and new customers, but the company cannot yet assess what this will mean in terms of specific orders or supply agreements," company CEO Thomas Sorensson said.

In the U.S., recovered carbon black producer Bolder Industries and clean carbon black producer Monolith Materials both use a version of methane pyrolysis that uses electricity to separate natural gas rather than a furnace to separate petroleum or crude oil.

Much like Cancarb Ltd. in Alberta, Canada, Luxembourg-based Orion Engineered Carbons, which recently increased its legacy carbon black capacity in Italy with a new reactor line, has installed a co-generation facility at its 60-year-old plant to convert waste heat into electricity, generating up to 120 MWh of green electricity per year.

Of that amount, 70 percent is supplied to the national grid for the EU, serving about 30,000 households, Orion said.

As the fog of war once again blurs industry forecasts in eastern Europe, finding ways to give raw materials new life—and greener ways of producing them—will be critical for the global rubber manufacturing industry moving forward.