Apollo Considers Expansion of Dunlop SA Plant

Apollo Tyres is planning a major capacity expansion at its Dunlop South Africa facility, Indian newspapers have reported. The project is expect to go into action in 2008/09. Mr S. Sarkar, Chief of Corporate Strategy and Marketing of Apollo Tyres, told Hindu Business Line that Apollo has already ramped up the production of the South African facility from 150 tonnes to 170 tonnes a day through “various de-bottlenecking exercises.” Productivity increases could lead to another 20 tonnes of output capacity being generated this financial year.

Dunlop SA produces primarily radial tyres including truck-bus radials. Roughly 15 per cent of the capacity is used in manufacturing heavy-duty off-the-road (OTR) tyres for the mining sector. The products are marketed in Europe, Australia and South Africa. An increase in OTR capacity is believed to be among the plans.