Rubber Trees

[cobbler]

Another thing GREG is this.Mountain yang will fluctuate much more than flat land.EG.After rain production will go up

Maybe 4 to 5 KG per day for the 1st few days or week.Then suddenly will drop.You may think the wirkers are stealing,but its not that.Its just that rain runs off the side of the mountain .Not soaking in as much as flat land.but it all balances out in the end.Also mountain yang,depending on wind direction can be affected more than flat land.EG the top of the mountain will have stronger wind preassure than down low.So therefor have less production on a windy night.

Workers can cut more trees on flat land than mountain too.So they will allways be looking for a flat farm to work on.This means a bit of a pain in the ass for owner finding new workers.Good side of that is.Mountain yang is a lot cheaper to buy

Cheers Cobbler

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[kolohe]

Sorry guys I have no Idea:blink:

I have asked but no answer.So I didnt bother following it up.1 thing is for sure.They sure are suited to this area.

By the way Has james gone into making teak doors now or just cant get back on

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Typically the really old trees are "Bolaan"... the newer old trees are RM600 which are the predominant ones now. I'm not sure when the RM600s gained popularity so its really hard to tell. We also have some really old ones but I'm not sure what they are. We also have a patch of RM600s too.

Apologies in advance for any spelling errors.. I'm full of Glenmorangie tonight.

[cobbler]

Probably R Burrrrp sssscuze me

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[Mosha]

Stands back in amazement. 3 days uninterrupted cutting.

[Hunter s somtam]

Just had some guys come into the village to buy ,I went and had a look ,cup rubber 36bt a kilo .they said last week they could get 39 , are these similar prices you guys are getting ?

Update on the tree I moved ,it is dead and and buried ,replaced him with a new one .

Well hope the price comes up for everyone out there .

[Mosha]

^ Last rubber we sold was about 3 weeks ago. Only just got tapping again.

[thaiguzzi]

Just had some guys come into the village to buy ,I went and had a look ,cup rubber 36bt a kilo .they said last week they could get 39 , are these similar prices you guys are getting ?

Update on the tree I moved ,it is dead and and buried ,replaced him with a new one .

Well hope the price comes up for everyone out there .

Up here in Udon, gate prices for cup rubber are anywhere between 34-37 baht per kg at the moment. auction prices always 3-5 baht higher.

[thaiguzzi]

600 trees, 7-8 years old, don't believe will fill a cup in 2-3 days at this time of year, nov-dec possibly, especially in Loei.

251 trees will produce a fair bit more, but again, doubt it at this time of year ie rainy season.

[Mosha]

We have several trees loosing leaves and producing nuts. They've done this before. so not unduly worried. Anybody know what causes this unseasonal seeding/leaf drop?

[muratremix]

Sometime ago dear jamescollister told me that buying / selling rubber AKA middle-man is bad business, profits per kg were in satang range. After 2 years, I must have forgotten this and I was excited to become one. My wife's uncle told us he sold his keeyang for 40 baht/kilo in this April. Of course, me doesn't know rubber is sold by percentage / DRC or Dry rubber content, I thought wow there is a good profit in there, because cup lump / keeyang price in market is nearly 60 baht! He told me these middle man collect from everybody and then go to sell at factory nearby and make a profit.

I had plans to collect keeyang as a smalltime middle-man and buy from other midlle-men to send 10-20 tons to Bangkok / Rayong where I can sell for full price, not the factory given low price and even make more profit lol.

Anyway, my plans destroyed when I learned the hard truth. 60-62 baht/kg cup lump (kee yang) was for 100 percent. If yours has 50 percent rubber inside (no idea how can they check all initially?) you get only 30-31 baht. You also have to understand how much rubber inside keeyang when you are buying, which is almost impossible to accurately guess by squeezing rubber manure.

However I still don't understand why some people is doing this business if profits are low and required capital is high for most of the Thais. I also don't understand how Factory or buyer in Market place calculate rubber content inside keeyang? I assume they buy in bulk, convert Keeyang into pure rubber sheet or some other form, calculate how many kilograms of output and pay seller after a few days. In this case, middle man always at risk of getting cheated as there is no way to control how much rubber actually inside keeyang but has to agree whatever buyer / factory tells them.

My 1 million dollar question in this context is: How to convert keeyang into rubber sheet or other usable form? Is it possible? What kind of expensive machinery or chemicals required for this? Is it wise to invest in this as there is a price gap between cup lump (100 percent) and rubber sheet / sun dried rubber sheet?

[thaiguzzi]

Forget it. If you don't have the labour force and drivers, say a team of a dozen, 2-3 ten wheeler trucks, and a minimum of 5 mil, preferably 10-20 mil cash, the contacts in the factories, you aint gonna make it. I know two successful Thais that do this and that is what is recquired. On a 5 mil auction buy, there profit is about 100k on the day (less diesel and wages for the team)... still not a bad day's work.

Kee cannot be turned into sheet. It is cleaned, cleaned again, shredded, diced and cleaned again, all done with industrial machinery, loaded onto pallets as is, and sent on it's way to the processing factories.

[muratremix]

Well, perhaps I explained it wrong.

The idea is to buy keeyang from small middle men and convert it into some kind of rubber sheet, crepe rubber or whatever they call it to sell.

Now I'm not an expert on rubber types. As I understand, there are several types of rubber sheet. They have RIBBED SMOKED SHEET or RSS1 - RSS5, They have TECHNICALLY SPECIFIED RUBBER or STL XX, They have USS3 type rubber sheet with different moisture content inside.

I watched a few videos and saw 3 different machines. First machine is to clean dirt from rubber, second one to remove water content and leave only rubber inside as an ugly sheet. Third and huge machine (uses 22kw power on 380v line and about 3900 kilograms <deleted>?) makes nice rubber sheet.

Then I run into a small family company who produce rubber sheet (ugly ones, they don't have 3rd and expensive machine to make them perfectly slim like paper) on internet, you can check yourself: http://kcrawrubber.wordpress.com/

They don't seem to have 5-10 million baht in cash or investment. I am okay to invest a few million baht if I'm convinced in returns in medium to long term.

Since its not a good idea to buy & sell kee yang, due to uncontrollable drc in keeyang, I thought it will be a good idea to convert 59-60 baht 100% keeyang to some sort of rubber sheet that is sold for 70-75 baht per kilo and make profit. I can deal with the losses of buying 50 percent keeyang as 60percent when you can sell it more expesive. Of course I'm not assuming 70-60 = 10 baht net per kilo profit, but when there is a profit range larger than satangs, you can deal with losses during keeyang purchase.

Now back to the kcrawrubber, I noticed they use some sort of machinery out of the open and it seems they bought in Thailand, not from China. I wonder if they can sell their rubber like this in the market, or perhaps there is a name for this kind of rubber which I do not know.

[cobbler]

555 your answer is.U R FARANG.Dont bother.By the time u buy all th stufff.Chockdee.Good farkin luck.

Having said that.I know the middle man or should I say.1 of the middle men down here is in america every closed season.So they r deffinately making money.

Just my shitty oppinion is.If you are going to have rubber trees and get whatever income comes off it.Ok great.Its easy money.Passive income.BUT.If u r going to do a buying and selling bussines.U will rely heavily on your missus.Ask yourself 1 question before starting.As good as she is ,can she deal with Thai men?????

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[thaiguzzi]

Don't think your idea will work. Too many things to go wrong. Best of luck though. I would think it would be better in investing large money in property at the moment, agriculture and house land. Buy and sell.

[glennb6]

Muratremix,

been there tried that, don't suggest trying that. Only way I can see possibly making money with doing is buying liquid latex and making USS and RSS. There seems to be an enough profit margin in that value add process. Jim is indeed THE falang to talk to about if you were seriously looking into it.

Little over a year back I made a smoking house, rolling racks, and bought a fancy sheeting machine, all in expectation of the wife hitting the dirt paths and getting some of the locals to sell us liquid latex. She didn't/couldn't/wouldn't/whatever - not one drop of latex did she find to purchase from the local farmers. <deleted> it, I sold the machine and the rest sits amongst the weeds. Kills me as I see the spread between RSS3 and dry keeyang has been over 20 baht lately.

However, before I canned the whole idea I decided to give keeyang buying a shot, sort of at wife's suggestions. My take away on that 3 months of stinky fun was that I was EXTREMELY lucky to have broke even and not lot money. Dude, there are better ways to employ money than focusing on a 1-2% gross profit margin business which isn't exactly legal for falangs to do anyways.

However again in my pigheadedness before the final heave ho, I discovered this crepe rubber stuff. Hmmph. Maybe I could make crepe sheets from wet keeyang (which I knew was available). Did some investigating and tracked a few crepe sellers down who were selling pickup truck loads at SriTrang Rubberland factory near me. There was a small crepe producer local who would process keeyang into crepe blanket for 2 baht a kg. After taking to the crepe rubber dept mgr at Rubberland and getting a BS line on the pricing, I found out that they pay about a 2 to 2.5 baht premium for very dry crepe. That math doesn't work, or at least unless you play the wait and gamble game, which I don't suggest.

I know the owner of KCRaw, he happens to be my immigration officer. He's a 1st class honest guy as far as I can tell, at least I've not had any reason to say otherwise. Wife says same.

His processing yard is about 20 minutes south of where I live. Recently he told me he acquired ownership of those creping machine from a Malaysian. He's doing crepe business and I'm not, but I cannot fathom how he's processing the quantity kilograms he says he is given the stationary wooden hanging racks. He had asked me to try making contacts in Malaysia and China to help him sell big tonnage but I got nowhere with making inquiries.

I had run spreadsheets on making crepe as a value added business and couldn't see how it could make sense, also at very small profit margins.

If you were to want to pursue crepe, this machine (http://sti-inter.com/product_detail.asp?pid=45) could run about 1 ton a day with two workers, 2 ton if you worked a long day. Factory owner Shannon, is a Thai who grew up in US and is fluent English speaker. We talked about crepe and he said unless I were to setup a large factory, don't bother.

glennb

[cobbler]

Sounds to me he is picking your brains while telling you not enough to let you make money.Thais are very good at keeping secrets.After all ,would they rather share secrets and profit with a Farang or a Thai.

Tread carefuly before throwing unkniwn amounts of money at anything.

Maybe his plan is to let you think you can make money.Then when you fail.He will be there to buy all your machinery from you cheap.Coz you wont need it and uts brand new.Of course he not say this now.O he is so polite.This is Thai style.

Cobbler

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Edited July 3, 2013 by cobbler

[thaiguzzi]

40.15 baht per kilo, kee yang, sold at auction yesterday, Udon.

[thoregeir]

helped with transportation and sold "kiyang" for some farmers here in Loei, 7-8 year old tree. from what I've figured out they approx.10-15 Bath per month per tree. the drain for about 8 months. here is dry and rugged terrain much work for little in return. set out from what they have left, not rubber father much more valuable than anything you can grow. many farms for sale here at too high price. I think the dream of huge profits, but the reality is something else entirely.

[cobbler]

Yes.Good observation.Its quite simple.No water going into the tree no rubber coming out.

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[Mosha]

Jim said in his neck of the woods, folks were planting rubber, in places that were absolutey unsuited to it. Sold USS today 70 baht/kg

[cobbler]

Yes I believe that.

By the way Mosha we have seeds forming on our trees too.Dont know why.

We are getting better weight per mat this year so happy with that.

Cheers Cobbler

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[glennb6]

34b /kg wet kee today at the village middleman, this after spending 700 baht for a pulling jump start of the truck (stuck 6 km out in the jungle) via a Kubota tractor shark was called 3 hours earlier. To add insult to graft and jungle highway robbery my shop wiggled the battery leads and it started fine with mechanic saying free-free. At least they're honest and I tipped him an embarrassed 100 baht.

[cobbler]

100 bart is 2 beers.sounds good to me

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[Mosha]

Yes I believe that.

By the way Mosha we have seeds forming on our trees too.Dont know why.

We are getting better weight per mat this year so happy with that.

Cheers Cobbler

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The leaves come baxk pdq, and it soesn't seem to affect latex flow too much. Jim in another place reckons a quick release type of Pui may help.

[Mosha]

100 bart is 2 beers.sounds good to me

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Or 5 bottles of Lhao Khao 555

[Mosha]

USS 69 Baht/kg. Lady at the depot says she is not storing yang but selling as soon as the have a wagon load. She's expecting much lower prices.

[thaiguzzi]

Looks like we will break our record of least amount of taps per fortnight, tomorrow. 4 !!!

[kwonitoy]

37 baht per kilo, wet cup at action a couple of days ago, east of Ban Dung area.

And slow slow slow to collect the money, my tapper went to collect money late in the afternoon so as to not waste his time and still didn't get back home untill about 7:30PM

[Mosha]

Looks like we will break our record of least amount of taps per fortnight, tomorrow. 4 !!!

Been there, Couple of years ago it was depressing. About 2 months

[thaiguzzi]

Another record broken. Worst price we have ever received in 3 seasons... key yang, at auction, Udon, 37.65 baht per kg. Jeesus #*cking Christ.