This year BKT celebrates 10 years since the Earthmax range was first introduced, products Kirkby Tyres has been involved with since their release. Seeing as Earthmax has reached this milestone in BKT’s history, Kirkby Tyres will be representing the tyres over the three-day Hillhead event from the 26 to 28 June 2018 at Hillhead Quarry Buxton in Derbyshire, UK.
Off-highway tyre specialist BKT says it going to display its top-of-the-range products for the market segments it serves at The Tire Cologne later this month. The BKT stand at the trade fair (Hall 06.1 Stand C030 D039) will feature tyres for agricultural, agro-industrial, earthmoving, industrial, and construction applications.
The talk is of “more and more adrenaline and fun” – BKT is gearing up to participate in Monster Jam when it returns to Europe. The Monster Jam trucks, shod of course with BKT tyres, will thrill audiences in five European cities during the 2018 tour. The action begins in Germany tomorrow at the Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt before heading to the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on 19 May. After a short break, Monster Jam heads over to France, where it will entertain at Groupama Stadium in Lyon on 16 June. Fans in the Netherlands can catch Monster Jam at Stadion Feijenoord in Rotterdam on 30 June. The tour concludes in Norway, with three days of Monster Jam in Oslo between 19 and 21 October.
Instead of just finding dandelions growing in fields, we may soon also find them in the tyres of tractors and other agricultural vehicles that traverse these fields. Balkrishna Industries Limited (BKT) sees a future for these plants as a material within the tyres it makes; it recently entered into a joint research agreement with US biotechnology company Kultevat, Inc. to develop new compounding methods based on TKS/Russian dandelion rubber, with the aim of integrating these into its tyre manufacturing process.
A tractor isn’t the first vehicle that springs to mind when planning a 4,000-mile odyssey through South Africa that passes through national parks, along gold mines and over plateau, however this is the transport of choice for the 16-strong team taking part in Xtractor 2018. Early next week, four McCormick tractors will depart Cape Town on this 49-day on- and off-road journey, riding on the Agrimax Force and Agrimax RT 657 rubber provided by Xtractor tyre partner BKT. The off-road tyre specialist has created a mini-website where all interested parties can follow the team’s progress; regular updates and real time news from Xtractor 2018 can be found at Xtractor.bkt-tires.com.
We’re more used to seeing winter tyres in the car and truck segments, however off-highway tyre specialist BKT has launched a range of tyres developed with colder conditions in mind. These are the Earthmax SR 22, Snow Trac and Earthmax SR 42 for OTR applications, as well as Earthmax SR 33 and Ridemax IT 696 for the industrial sector.
After being named Truck & Agricultural Tyre Supplier of The Year in both 2015 and 2016, last year Kirkby Tyres went home from the NTDA Tyre Industry Awards ceremony in October with the trophy for Tyre Wholesaler of the Year. The 2017 award was for Kirkby perhaps the crowning moment in a year that saw its original equipment and OE2 business continue to grow as well as work progress on its warehousing expansion programme. This expansion will be completed during the course of 2018 and is expected to enhance Kirkby’s operations. The wholesaler also anticipates an increase in its OE/OE2 activities and is introducing several other important agricultural products.
When Tyrepress.com visited BKT’s new factory in Bhuj, India late in 2015, work had begun on a new research and development centre. The off-road tyre maker reports that this facility is now complete, and it recently inaugurated the ‘Suresh Poddar Innovation Hub’. The centre is named after the oldest of the three Poddar brothers. It is located within a 25-acre area called the Mahabirprasad Poddar Knowledge Center, named after BKT founder, the late Mahabirprasad Poddar.
African freestyle footballer Iya Traoré may be drawing crowds to the BKT stand at Agritechnica, however the off-road tyre specialist considers the true stars of its exhibition space to be two recent arrivals in its agricultural portfolio. One of these is displayed fitted to a full-sized plexiglass tractor weighing one and a half tonnes.
Kirkby Tyres’ 2017 expansion programme will see its first warehouse completed in December 2017, with the 80,000sqft of new floor space, across nine additional new warehouses, fully operational by March 2018. In total, Kirkby will fit in 2,500 additional tyre racking units, enabling 8.9m high tyre storage facilities. The wholesaler will also add 10 more loading bays to its operation. In order to realise this expansion, Kirkby purchased three acres of land adjacent to its Speke headquarters, allowing it to increase its stock capacity and further improve its logistical operations, and increasing its total footprint to approximately nine acres. Kirkby added that the expansion would require more local personnel to be employed, and enable the company to offer customers a wider range of brands, sizes and applications.
Eight hectares have been set aside at the Balkrishna Industries Limited (BKT) production site in Bhuj, India for the construction of a new carbon black plant. Last month the tyre maker’s Board of Directors approved an initial investment of Rs 1.5 billion (£18.1 million) for this project to add backward integration to BKT’s supply chain, and the company says the plant will not only provide a constant supply of raw materials for its tyre production, the carbon black produced in Bhuj will enable it to “better ensure raw material qualities thanks to the now even more accurate controls at the beginning of the entire manufacturing process.”
Balkrishna Industries, the firm behind BKT brand tyres, recently announced plans to build a 60,000 ton/year carbon black plant at its facility in Bhuj, Gujarat, India. No completion date was announced for the project that is estimated to cost roughly $23 million.
Monster Jam is coming to Europe, albeit not our part of Europe. Over the coming week, the Monster Jam Europe tour will bring monstrous four-wheeled antics to Spain and France. Off-road tyre specialist BKT is sponsoring the show for the fourth consecutive year, and returns as exclusive Monster Jam tyre manufacturer.
BKT has launched its latest tyre for terminal tractors, Portmax PT 93, from its booth at Automechanika Dubai, of which the Indian multinational is Diamond Sponsor and Official Tire Partner. Alongside the new product, BKT promoted a selection of its tyres for the industrial sector from its booth at the Dubai World Trade Center between 7 and 9 May.
As a tyre wholesaler specialising in commercial tyre segments, Kirkby Tyres has progressively expanded its range of OTR tyres and wheels; the company states that its range of radial and bias tyres for earthmovers and construction vehicles is now “enormous and varied”. The wholesaler has distribution partnerships with several rising manufacturers, such as Alliance, BKT, and Double Coin, which have supported Kirkby’s competitive pricing strategy.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.