Updated: BKT aims to take a ‘giant’ step forward

As part of this, the company aims to achieve a 4% market share in the all-steel radial segment of the global OTR market by that same year.

"To meet our targets for 2025 we need some expansion," BKT joint MD Rajiv Poddar told ERJ in a 6 June interview – during an event in Crete to mark the 10th year of the Earthmax radial tire range.

“The [Bhuj] plant in Gujarat has been designed to allow us to reach three times the production output of OTR steel tires of what it is today,” he said. “So are goals are attainable as they are based on capacity that is available to us.”

BKT is currently focused on expanding the range of giant tires produced at its Bhuj facility, which rolled out the company’s first all-steel radial giant tire – the Earthmax SR45 plus R49 – in 2016.

Production of other giant tires, also in 49-inches, have since followed at the Gujarat facility and, said Poddar, BKT is now preparing to step up further in this market.

“Thanks to significant investment in new tire building machinery, we have plans to bring 51" and 57" tires – in Q2, 2019 and Q2 2020 respectively – to complete the giant tire segment,” he said.

Production of giant tires requires equipment that is specially adapted to BKT's requirements, noted Poddar, who went on to explain his priorities for expanding operations at Bhuj.

"This would include stream-lining the downstream side, [including] the tire building machines and the vulcanising presses," he said. "Mixing capacity should be okay, but everything post-mixing would be needed."

For giant tires, he said: "we need semi-automation and are customising the tire-building to our own needs. This is [with] companies across Asia willing to work with us in building our own machine with our flexibility [requirements]."

As well as the introduction of giant OTR tires, other major projects at Bhuj include the completion of a new 60ktpa carbon black plant. Start-up of the facility is “coming up soon,” said the company boss.

The BKT executive was speaking at a customer and press event in Crete to mark the 10th year of its Earthmax radial tire range for dumpers, wheel loaders, bulldozers, graders and other multi-purpose vehicles.

The BKT group produces OTR tires for the agricultural, industrial, earthmoving, mining, ATV and gardening sectors.

We will report further on BKT's plans and market strategy in the July/August edition of European Rubber Journal magazine.