Rubber & tire industry in numbers

Review of the key figures and data to emerge this week from leading players in the global industries: 

PROJECTS / RESTRUCTURING

PROJECTS

Guizhou Tyre has broken ground on a €207m project to add a new passenger car tire factory at its facilities in Vietnam. The construction phase, valued at €17m, will be carried out by engineering firm China Railway Sixth Bureau Group. Guizhou disclosed plans for the 6m units/yr plant in September.

Linglong has marked the tenth anniversary of its tire plant in Choburi, Thailand, noting that the unit has reached a production capacity of 17.2m units/yr, encompassing passenger car, light vehicle and truck & bus tires. Over the decade, the site has shipped over 112m tires to destinations including North & South America, EMEA and Asia-Pacific and supplied more than 1.4m tires for OE fitment to global car makers.

Japan’s Nitta Corp. has expanded its automotive hose and tubing operations in Thailand with the construction of a new plant at its existing site in Rayong. The new THB140m (€4m) unit doubles the production space of the site to 7,200 sq.m and has been operational since July.

Qingdao Sentury Tire Co. has started production at its tire manufacturing facility in Tangier, in the northwest of Morocco, with commercial-scale manufacturing set for next year. Output in 2025 is expected to reach 6-8m units of passenger car and light truck tires/yr.

BUSINESS

USTMA raised its previous forecast for total US tire shipments in 2024, driven primarily by demand in the replacement market. Overall, the association expects total tire shipments to reach 338.9 units in 2024, up 2.1% compared to 2023: surpassing the previous record of 335.2m units set in 2021. (See also Table above)

Toyoda Gosei is targeting a 50% increase in operating earnings under a new growth plan to 2030. Sales are targeted to reach to Yen1,200bn, compared to Yen1,100bn in fiscal 2023. Versus 2023, operating profit is to grow by 48% to Yen100bn (€610m) and operating profit ratio by 1.7 percentage points to 8.0% over the next five years.

Polish waste tire pyrolysis company Reoil has signed up German distributor Harke Chemicals to supply its rCB and tire pyrolysis oil (TPO) across Europe and the UK. With 2023 sales of over €12m and EBITDA of €5.8m, Reoil operates a 20ktpa ELT pyrolysis facility in Bukowno, Poland and is currently preparing to establish a second plant with capacity of up to 60ktpa in cooperation with Zeppelin Systems.

 SHARE PRICES

Leading tire manufacturers’ share-price trends

MATERIALS markets

Recyclate

Continental AG is increasing the proportion of recycled materials in its tires as more plants are converted to use polyester fabric made from recycled PET bottles. The has increased the recycled content of many of its tire lines by an average of 3% and depending on the tire size, up to 15 PET bottles are used per tire.

Natural rubber

Natural rubber (NR) futures have strengthened amid improvement in market sentiment and Chinese stock-market recovery. During the final trading week of November, NR pricing rose across all major exchanges, supported by fresh buying interest and short covering, JPX reported 2 Dec.

Selected NR futures price trends on major trading exchanges

(ERJ calculation for selected futures)

Previous ERJ week in numbers.