Expansion Planned For Nokian Tyres’ St. Petersburg Factory

Nokian Tyres plc and Lemcon Oy, which is part of the Lemminkäinen Group, have signed a contract agreement on the expansion of Nokian Tyres’ plant in St. Petersburg. The contract was signed in Vsevolozhsk on 21 June.

Expansion will begin immediately and will be completed in March 2008. In total, the expansion will comprise approximately 33,000 square metres. Potential production capacity can be increased from the current four million tyres per year up to around 10 million tyres per year. Two new production cells will be installed in the new production premises in 2008 and these will increase the annual production volume to six million tyres. The maximum annual capacity of 10 million tyres will be achieved in 2011. Production machinery will be new and as automated as possible and the increased capacity will call for future investments in an expansion of the mixing plant and machine lines.

The foundation stone of Nokian Tyres’ plant in St. Petersburg was laid in June 2004, and the plant was inaugurated in September 2005. Lemcon was also in charge of the first phase construction. The plant currently employs some 370 people.

The ground construction work for the Nokian Tyres expansion project was initiated as a separate contract in March 2007. Similarly, heating, plumbing, electricity, air conditioning and automation tasks will be carried out as a separate contract to be agreed on later.