Expansion plans on four continents

London - Tire makers have announced expansion plans in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia, in response to ongoing growth in tire consumption.

Hankook Tire on 23 March announced plans to add 550,000 unit/year truck & bus tire capacity in Hungary. A €290-million project at the company’s Rácalmás site will start in June, with production scheduled to start two years later.

Pirelli, meanwhile, has unveiled plans to invest more than €250m in Latin America over the next three years. Digital transformation, smart manufacture and ‘big data’ will be the focus of the spending to 2020.

In Setif, Algeria first tires are expected to roll out from a new tire plant in the third quarter of 2018, according to project support firm Black Donuts Engineering. Phase I will see the production of around 2 million passenger car tires a year, said founder Kai Hauvala.

There is “most probably” also a plan to expand the PCR capacity and go into TBR production at a later stage, added Hauvala, whose company is offering technical support for the project.

In China, Delun Rubber broke ground on a passenger car tire project with 4 million units annual capacity at its existing site in Chuzhou, Dingyuan, in February. With 121,000 total area, the project has €155 million (1.2 billion yuan) investment earmarked.

The facility is slated to come on stream in 2019 and will create 700 new jobs when in full operation, the company told ERJ.

Another Chinese tire maker Jiangsu General Science Technology (JGST) is raising capital through private placement to fund a fully automated smart plant with 1.2-million-unit annual capacity for high performance truck and bus tires.

The aim is to raise up to €171 million, all of which will be pumped into the new plant with €185 total investment, JGSC said in March.

The new plant, pending further regulatory approval, is located at the company’s existing site in Wuxi, Jiangsu province and will take 15 months to complete. It is expected to generate €47 million annual profit on €268 million sales when in full operation.