Sri Lanka’s rubber manufacturers increasingly turned to imported lower-grade ribbed smoked sheet (RSS) rubber in October, as the wet weather disrupted the domestic tapping and tightened the raw material supplies, while the volumes offered at the Colombo Rubber Auction fell by more than a third from a year earlier.
Forbes & Walker Commodity Brokers said the domestic supply constraints supported the higher prices across the latex crepe grades, with the RSS availability further restricted by the diversion of available latex towards centrifuged latex production.
Total rubber offerings at the Colombo auctions declined 34.1 percent year-on-year (YoY) to 291,869 kilogrammes in October, from 442,859 kilogrammes in the corresponding month of 2025. The decline reflects the reduced availability through the auction channel rather than a measure of the change in national production.
The tightening supply comes against a backdrop of rising export receipts. The rubber and rubber-based product export earnings increased 33.68 percent YoY to US $ 99.31 million in September, taking the earnings for the first nine months of 2026 to US $ 773.88 million, up 8.44 percent. According to the broker, the persistent rainfall disrupted tapping across key rubber-growing regions during October, with the wet days increasing after the middle of the month.
The RSS supplies were particularly limited. Just 2,844 kilogrammes were offered across the month’s four auctions, with no offerings at the final two sales. Grades RSS2 to RSS5 remained unquoted throughout October, while RSS1 was quoted only at the first two auctions.
“With the domestic raw material availability remaining tight, the manufacturers increasingly relied on imported lower-grade RSS to meet their production requirements,” the report said.
The supply constraints also sustained an upward trend in the latex crepe prices, with some lower grades recording substantially larger annual increases than the premium rubber.
Premium latex crepe 1X averaged Rs.1,187.50 per kilogramme in October, compared with Rs.1,000 a year earlier, an increase of 18.8 percent. No.1 averaged Rs.1,186 per kilogramme, up 19.8 percent from Rs.990.
Further down the grade range, No.2 averaged Rs.1,098.75 per kilogramme, up 30 percent YoY, while No.3 rose 42.7 percent to Rs.1,067.50. No.4 recorded a sharper 70.2 percent increase to Rs.1,059.50 per kilogramme.
The annual movements substantially narrowed the price gap between the premium and lower latex crepe grades. The difference between 1X and No.4 averaged Rs.128 per kilogramme in October, compared with Rs.377.50 a year earlier.
On the report’s monthly comparison, No.3 and No.4 prices increased by Rs.60.10 and Rs.61.30 per kilogramme, respectively, against a Rs.2.50 rise for premium 1X.
The scrap crepe prices also generally strengthened during the month, although the movements varied by grade. The average for 1X Brown increased by Rs.52.50 to Rs.997.50 per kilogramme, while 2X Brown and 4X Brown gained Rs.14 and Rs.4.41, respectively. In contrast, 3X Brown edged down Rs.1.83.
The broker attributed the overall firmness in the scrap crepe to sustained buying interest and limited supplies.
The latex crepe accounted for 207,100 kilogrammes of October auction offerings, followed by skim rubber at 47,375 kilogrammes and scrap crepe at 34,550 kilogrammes. RSS represented less than one percent of the total.
Rubber supply squeeze pushes prices higher
