With an investment of KRW 758.95 billion (£466.12 million), Hankook Tire & Technology will add truck and bus radial production to its site in Rácalmás, Hungary. The company expects the new production line to be completed by 2027, with an initial capacity to produce around 800,000 tyres annually. The expansion will create approximately 450 new jobs.
One in every five new vehicles on South African roads runs on Dunlop tyres and the Sumitomo Rubber South Africa production facility in Ladysmith supplies original equipment tyres to Toyota, Nissan, Isuzu, Hino, Tata, Scania and UD Trucks. Backed by parent company Sumitomo Rubber Industries, the local subsidiary has announced a “multi-billion rand investment project” to meet demand from OEMs.
In January 2022, Ceat announced it had “curbed” its ambition in the truck and bus radial segment and was looking to shift its investment focus to off-highway tyres. The company now appears to have reconsidered this step and is reactivating previously approved TBR capacity expansion plans.
In March Goodyear Slovenia concluded a 90-million-euro project to increase tyre production capacity at its Kranj plant by 25 per cent, a project that has created 160 jobs. The project commenced in January 2019 with a planned completion date of late 2021, however measures related to Covid-19 delayed work on the project.
Balkrishna Industries Ltd. has completed a project to increase carbon black capacity in Bhuj, India and set up a new power plant at the site. It says both the 55,000 tonnes per annum carbon black capacity project and the power plant project were concluded on 31 December 2022.
Through its local subsidiary Bridgestone Do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda, Bridgestone Corporation is once again increasing production capacity at the Bahia passenger car and light truck tyre plant in Brazil. Earlier today, the company said it would invest approximately BRL 270 million (£45.4 million) in this project; when combined with the capacity investment announced in July 2021, total investment in boosting Bahia plant capacity amounts to approximately BRL 970 million (£163.2 million).
Bridgestone Americas will spend US$550 million over the coming two years on the expansion and modernisation of its Warren County truck and bus radial tyre plant in the US state of Tennessee. The project will add 380 jobs to the Warren County workforce and expand the plant’s existing footprint by 850,000 square feet (around 79,000 square metres).
Capacities at Apollo Tyres Ltd.’s production facilities in Europe were 88 per cent utilised between March and June 2022. The utilisation figure for the tyre maker’s plants in India was around 85 per cent, reports chief financial officer Gaurav Kumar. This gives the company little leeway for further growth in volumes, but Apollo Tyres believes it can address this issue without resorting to a greenfield or brownfield capacity expansion project.
With capacity expansion projects now completed and being ramped up, BKT anticipates achieving a total capacity of 360,000 tonnes per annum by the end of March 2023. But further growth is necessary if the company is to keep pace with demand for its off-highway tyres. During a conference call with investors on 5 August, the tyre maker confirmed that plans are already “on the drawing board” for additional expansion beyond the current projects.
Bridgestone Corporation is investing to increase production capacity for motorcycle tyres at its Nasu plant in Japan, its sole motorcycle tyre production facility worldwide. The tyre maker will invest approximately 1.7 billion yen (£10.4 million) to gradually expand output potential from 2026, with capacity rising by approximately 90,000 units.
The difficulties that tyre makers are facing at present were reflected in Prinx Chengshan Holdings Limited’s financial results for 2021. Although company revenue increased 20 per cent year-on-year, a “significant increase in raw material prices and ocean freight rates” dragged gross profit down by approximately 24.7 per cent.
The war in Ukraine has brought “high uncertainty” to Nokian Tyres’ operational environment and manufacturing capacity, and as a result it is accelerating plans to invest in new production capacity in Europe. To help fund this capacity, the Board of Directors at Nokian tyres has decided to decrease the dividend payable for the 2021 financial year.
Bridgestone Corporation is expanding production capacity at four of its passenger car tyre plants in Japan. With an investment of approximately 8.2 billion yen (£52.8 million), capacity at the Tochigi, Hikone, Hofu and Tosu facilities will increase by approximately 6,200 tyres per day by the end of 2025, an amount that equals more than ten per cent of current capacity.
Round the clock, seven days a week production will soon be reality at the Nokian Tyres plant in Nokia, Finland. The tyre maker says the change to this format should “significantly” increase production capacity for passenger car tyres. Nokian is creating approximately 80 new jobs at the factory to accommodate this higher capacity.
In response to increased global demand from the farming sector for customised rim solutions, NDI Group is increasing capacity at its rim factory in Brørup, Denmark. It is doing so through an expansion of its production facility, and describes the work carried out as a “first step”. NDI anticipates completing the expansion in early 2022.
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