PRODUCTION: Synthetics for Tires

The U. S. needs a great deal of rubber—600,000 tons a year—for elastics, from fingerstalls to truck tires. Practically all (98%) of this rubber is lugged across 8,000 miles of Pacific Ocean from the Far East—British Malaya, The Netherlands East Indies, Burma, Thailand, French Indo-China. Japan, bent on wider control in East Asia, has long had its eye on these parts. And if the British fleet should be destroyed and the U. S. fleet sent into the Atlantic to guard against invasion from Europe, Japan might well be able to grab this Rubberland.

Since World War II has thus made the U. S. rubber supply a matter of specific naval strategy, FORTUNE began searching the only field that gives promise of U. S. self-sufficiency in rubber: synthetics.

This week in its August issue FORTUNE announced its findings. Prime points:

> Even if Japan should cut off rubber imports from the Far East, the U. S. would be in no serious danger of a rubber famine. Reason: synthetics are on the way.

> Making sensational progress in research and actual production, the U. S. rubber industry could put synthetics in mass production within two years. Present U. S. stocks of rubber, with intensive conservation—e.g., making automobile drivers stay below 40 m.p.h.—would last nearly that long.

> Technical experts are confident that a total capital investment of $100,000,000 to $200,000,000—cost of one or two battleships—would be enough to put the industry into mass production in 24 months. Critical would be the price of the finished product, now three to five times more than natural rubber (about 20¢ a pound). But synthetics have not yet had a chance to show what they could do in mass production, might well get down to rubber’s price.

> Only synthetic rubber now in sizable production is Du Font’s neoprene. Better methods and wider sales have knocked the price down from $1.05 to 65¢ a pound. Firestone, already making neoprene aircraft tires, is expected to announce auto tires of the same material any day.

> Potent newcomer among U. S. synthetics is German Buna, now used on more than 40% of Germany’s tired vehicles. Licensed by Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) to Firestone and U. S. Rubber, Buna is soon to be produced in a new Standard Oil Co. of Louisiana plant at Baton Rouge.

> Soon to be announced are production plans for Standard of N. J.’s new synthetic Butyl, a chemical cousin of Buna, developed by Standard chemists, made more cheaply than Buna from petroleum gases.

> Newest entry in the field is Ameripol, a polymerization of U. S. materials proudly announced this summer by Goodrich. Developed secretly in Goodrich’s laboratory, Ameripol is also a Buna cousin, is so good that Goodrich is now producing around 150 Ameripol tires a day, claims that they wear as well as natural rubber, show more resistance to heat, aging, sunlight.