Company Profile

The Work of a Rubber Dealer
Astlett Rubber serves an important and essential role in supplying a vital industrial raw material. We provide natural rubber, which is produced as an agricultural product half a world away, and synthetic rubber, mostly from producers outside North America, to the industry in Canada, the United States, and Latin America. We sell under guaranteed delivery contracts with assured quality and at the lowest possible price. We take legal title to all our material. We are not brokers; we do not work on commission.

Guaranteed Delivery Contracts
When you purchase from Astlett, you are dealing with an experienced, reliable supplier who guarantees to supply you as contracted. Security of supply for a material that comes from overseas is important. Astlett carries stocks and we have access to other dealers and factory safety stocks in case the ship is delayed. For the same reason, Astlett can supply spot, or fill-in shipments if you run short for whatever reason. Conversely, if a customer needs to defer deliveries of rubber, Astlett can often make mutually agreeable arrangements by finding another customer or storing the material.

Where manufacturers have long-term fixed orders, Astlett can provide matching long-term contracts for you to secure the supply of rubber. We will help you structure the contract to help you meet your needs.

Price
The cost of rubber to the consumer is the sum of the price paid to the producer, the cost of ocean freight, insurance, financing, overheads, mark-up and many small items. Most such costs are negotiable or minimized by an efficient, well-managed company. Astlett is an experienced and efficient commodity importer. Our efficient operation enhances our ability to satisfactorily serve our customers.

Astlett will fix the price for forward delivery contracts beyond the normal next arrival position. This permits companies to fix their rubber prices against their own fixed-price contracts.

Dealers, such as Astlett, play a pivotal world-wide role in price discovery for rubber. Producers naturally want the highest price for their product. Consumers want the lowest price. In-between dealers are the best independent mechanism for discovering the true market price of rubber.

Astlett is responsive to all requests for price indications or firm quotes. We will give our frank evaluation of market trends. We value our reputation for ethical dealing.

Financing
Astlett acquires rubber in South East Asia. The rubber is paid for immediately after it is loaded on board the transport ship. Additionally, payment is made for marine insurance, booking fees, ocean freight, import duties, foreign exchange, broker fees, inspection fees, banking fees and commissions, handling, cartage, storage, as well as office overheads. All these costs are paid out and financed until the customer's payment clears.

The customer is usually given normal trade terms of 30 days after title passes to pay the invoice. The time period for financing by Astlett ranges from 75 days for forward contracts, to 150 days or more for spot contracts. Dealer financing of rubber shipments significantly reduces customer financing requirements, thereby improving your company's balance sheet.

Transportation
Transportation cost is a significant component of the factory delivered cost. Astlett's thorough knowledge of ocean shipping, ports and inland freight keeps costs to a minimum. Our large-volume shipments with carriers from rubber producing areas gives us negotiating power for better-than-tariff rates.

Timeliness of delivery (including Just-In-Time delivery), avoidance of damage, flexibility of destination, and insurance are also considered. All play a role in the service provided by Astlett to the customer. Astlett uses ocean containers extensively to provide fast, just-in-time, damage free, door-to-door delivery to your location.

Services
Stocking Service
Astlett's distribution system moves rubber shipments from South East Asia to, or near, your plant. This moves the essential raw material closer in time and distance to its point of consumption. To have the material this close reduces risk and uncertainty for the consumer.

Astlett carries extensive stocks, at our own risk, as a service to consumers. Extensive stocks of rubber are maintained at Norfolk, VA, Toronto, ON, Montreal, PQ, and California. In addition, we have the ability stock rubber at any facility in North America.

Because of the long supply line for rubber, both physically and time-wise, not all businesses can plan far enough ahead to avoid out-of-stock or over-stocked situations. The pooled rubber stocks carried by Astlett is an economical solution to smoothing out fluctuations in supply, rather than every factory carrying their own safety stocks. Smaller consumers also benefit as they can buy only as required for immediate delivery. Risk of storage, handling, financing, insurance and market price changes are assumed by the dealer.

JIT Delivery
Astlett provides Just-in-Time deliveries of natural rubber using door-to-door container service from South East Asia. In case of delay, our own pool of stocks is a backup.

Mixed Truckloads to Go
Customers have the option of mixed-grade truckloads for immediate shipment. Astlett can provide this valuable service because we carry stock. Not only are the customer's inventory requirements for various grades minimized, but significant freight savings are realized with truckload shipments.

Technical Information Sheets
Astlett passes on to the purchaser all useful technical information furnished by the producer. Additionally, we have resources of technical literature to answer your questions. If you need further help, we will help you contact the Malaysian Rubber Bureau or the original producer.

Preferred Supplier Lists
Astlett maintains preferred supplier lists, based on our long experience with many producers of rubber. The quality and consistency of the rubber produced is the most important judgment, but packing, delivery and backup are also considered.

Market Information
Natural Rubber is an international commodity, bought and sold around the world, with prices set on a supply and demand basis, resulting in fluctuating prices. Both physical (delivery) and futures (hedging) contracts are traded.

Select customers are kept up to date on market levels by way of telephone, email market letters and FAX reports.

High Quality Natural Rubber Grades
All natural rubber comes as liquid latex from the Hevea Brasiliensis tree. Due to genetic engineering, many different clones of this tree exist. Differing production methods also impart specific characteristics to the raw rubber. Therefore, natural rubber is classified into numerous grades, depending on production methods and technical properties.

Astlett supplies all grades of natural rubber, including Technically Specified Rubbers (TSR), Visually Graded (Green Book), Trade Marked Types (our own and others) and special grades, including Granulated Rubber.

Astlett selects its rubber from reliable producers. Our long experience in the trade enables us to avoid poor quality and unreliable sources. Price isn't everything.

Contract Used by Astlett
Astlett uses a Natural Rubber Sales Contract that very specifically sets the terms and conditions agreed to between seller and buyer. A binding agreement is reached because Astlett must immediately enter into contracts with producers and/or futures exchanges since time is of the essence in a commodity market where prices can, and do, change rapidly.

The seller's contract cannot be varied in any significant way by the buyer's purchase order or confirmation. The rubber trade is both specialized and exotic, thus the "custom of the trade", derived from many years experience, holds. This "custom of the trade" is embodied in the rules and regulations of the Rubber Trade Association of North America, referenced in every contract, as well as other bodies such as the Rubber Manufacturers Association (Washington D.C.), the International Rubber Association, and the Singapore Commodity Exchange. These rules and regulations protect the interests of both parties and rely on arbitration to settle disputes rather than litigation.