Rhodia Settles Strike at French Silica Plant with Minimal Disruption

Industry sources indicate that Rhodia has settled a short strike at its precipitated silica plant in Collonges au Mont d’Or, France that occurred last week. The strike caused significantly reduced production at the plant for five or six days, with total lost production of about 1,500 tonnes. Rhodia responded to the outage by declaring force majeure and temporarily reducing customers’ allotments. Company sources indicate that the strike has been resolved and that the plant is back to 100%. __________________________________________ Update: The silica market is quite snug right now, between recovery from the downturn and new demand being generated by tire regulations, so the Rhodia strike created greater concern among European tiremakers than otherwise would have been the case. There are rumors that several supplies are contemplating expansions, but no projects have been initiated as of yet.