Chinese OTR tyre maker agrees licence deal with Amerityre

Pingdu, China - China's Qingdao Qizhou Rubber Co. Ltd has entered into a licence agreement with Amerityre Corp. to manufacture polyurethane elastomer retreads for three large-size mining tyres.

Amerityre will receive a $400 000 licence fee from Qingdao Qizhou over two years and has agreed to sell or help the Chinese firm obtain the necessary manufacturing equipment as well as supplying the necessary chemicals.

Qingdao Qizhou plans to build a new factory at its headquarters in the Mingcun Rubber Industrial Park, Pingdu, in the next year.

It expects the factory to have annual capacity of between 7200 and 10 000 units, using between 7.7 million pounds (3490 tonnes) and 16.5 million pounds (7480 tonnes) of polyurethane elastomer.

"The increasing demand for natural resources by emerging countries has caused a global shortage of large OTR (off-the-road) mining tyres,'' Amerityre president Ken Johnsen said.

''There have been reports of mining equipment sitting idle, without tyres.

''We've been evaluating the scalability of our retreading technology in the OTR tyre area and there is a substantial opportunity there.

We believe our polyurethane retreading process can provide an economical and superior retreading solution.

Qingdao Qizhou manufactures and exports agricultural, truck and OTR tyres under the brand names Gold Wheel and Broadway.