SYNTHETIC RUBBER

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5603, 9 April 1943, Page 4

SYNTHETIC RUBBER

OUTPUT IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES NOT FOR CIVILIANS Combined synthetic rubber production of the United States and Canada provides for 300,000 to 400,000 tons in 1943 and an output of 1,000,000 tons in 1944, but in spite of this there is little chance that there will be any left over for automobile tyres for civilians, declared Mr E. W. Rowzee, factory manager of the Canadian Synthetic Rubber Company. Sarnia, in a recent address before the Ontario section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The stock pile of natural rubber is rapidly going down, he said, and to meet the growing shortage a huge synthetic rubber project is being developed at Sarnia by the Goodrich. Goodyear, Firestone’, and United States rubber companies. The synthetic rubber programme of the Unit-

ed States and Canada calls for a bil-lion-dollar expenditure. Great Britain, he said, is doing nothing in the way of developing the industry, and is relying on these two countries for its supply. After the synthetic rubber is processed, most ol the manufacturing for military and essential industry purposes will also be carried out on this side of the Atlantic.

German chemists were the first to develop synthetic rubber, he pointed out, and Germany has- nothing to fear in the way of a rubber shortage if it can maintain its 1939 production figure of 100,000 aons of synthetic rubber. Since manufactured rubber is made from either, coal, petroleum, or grain, Mr Rowzee believes Germany is in a good position, having almost inexhaustible supplies of coal, tin North America there are all three sources, he explained, but it has been decided by both countries to use the waste products of petroleum which are capable of quick conversion into synthetic rubber.