Polymer Modified Bitumen (PMB / PG 76-22 / SBS)

SBS-modified binder by softening point, elastic recovery and storage stability, hot-bulk or drummed

Polymer modified bitumen is a paving binder with an elastomer — usually styrene-butadiene-styrene, SBS — dispersed in it so the pavement resists rutting at high pavement temperatures and cracking at low ones, and every standard tests for the same three things: how hot it can get before it softens, how much it springs back after stretching, and whether the polymer stays in suspension in the tank. IS 15462:2019, the Indian standard that MoRTH and NHAI works cite, grades PMB by pavement temperature range — PMB 64-10, 70-10, 76-10, 82-10 and 76-22 — with softening points of 60, 65, 70, 80 and 75°C minimum, elastic recovery at 15°C of 70, 70, 70, 85 and 80% minimum, penetration 50–80 dmm, flash point 230°C minimum, viscosity at 150°C of 1.2–1.6 Pa·s maximum and a separation limit of 3°C difference in softening point between top and bottom of the tube. EN 14023 writes the grade as penetration class and minimum softening point — PMB 45/80-65 is 45–80 dmm and 65°C minimum, 25/55-55 the harder class — with elastic recovery to EN 13398 and storage stability to EN 13399, which holds a tube of the binder vertical for three days at 180°C and measures the softening-point difference, 5°C maximum on the published data sheets. AASHTO M320 PG 76-22 names the design pavement temperatures, 76°C high and minus 22°C low, and because M320 was written for unmodified binders agencies add the AASHTO T301 elastic recovery test, traditionally 65% minimum, or move to the AASHTO M332 MSCR grading where PG 64E-22 is the polymer-modified equivalent. ASTM D5976, the old SBS-modified asphalt cement specification, was withdrawn in 2005 without replacement, so a data sheet that still quotes it is quoting a dead standard.

The buyer is a highway concessionaire, a national roads authority project or an asphalt plant laying a wearing course on a heavy-traffic or high-temperature corridor — expressways and airport pavements in India and Pakistan, trunk roads in Kenya and Tanzania — and the enquiry names the grade from its specification and the delivery arrangement, because PMB is harder to move than penetration grade. It must be stored hot, agitated or circulated to keep the SBS from separating, and used within weeks of manufacture; bitutainers (heated ISO tank containers) deliver it hot in bulk to a plant with heated storage and a stirrer, while new 150/180 kg steel drums deliver it solid for remelting, which suits remote sites but asks more of the plant's melting and mixing. The landed cost reflects that: Malawi's 2024 import declarations show South African specialty and polymer-modified grades at nearly USD 2,000/MT against about USD 1,000 for drummed UAE penetration grade. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers SBS-modified PMB from refinery and independent modification plants against SGS or Intertek certification of softening point, penetration, elastic recovery, separation, viscosity and flash point at the loading point, to the grade and standard the buyer's specification names — IS 15462, EN 14023 or AASHTO M320/M332. Supply is structured in bitutainers for hot-bulk delivery and new steel drums for solid delivery, on FOB, CFR and CIF terms into Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Karachi and Indian west-coast ports; because CBIL also runs a chartering desk (LaycanDesk), a bulk parcel in a heated-coil bitumen tanker is quoted alongside the product where the volume justifies it. Send the grade, the standard, the tonnage and whether you have heated, agitated storage, and we will work the plant and the pack to it.

Need the ship as well? Our chartering desk prices bitumen tanker and drummed bitumen freight on LaycanDesk.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.