(Akron/Tire Review) Yonhap news service reported that Hankook Tire Co. plans to increase tyre shipments to Ford Motor Co. next year. The report said Hankook will boost OE shipments to Ford by about 150,000 units.
Components manufacturer Accuride Corporation has released its financial results for Q4 2006 and for the twelve months ending December 31, 2006. The company reported Q4 net sales of US$344.9 million, an increase of 15 per cent compared with the same period the previous year. Accuride attributes this expansion primarily to the continued robust demand in the commercial vehicle industry and the partial pass-through of raw material costs.
Hayes Lemmerz International Inc plans to transform its technical alliance for the licenced manufacture of passenger car steel wheels in Russia into a formal joint venture over the next couple of years.
Just over a year after Michelin North America announced it would invest $92 million setting up production facilities for its X One wide single tyre in Canada, employees at the Waterville, Nova Scotia plant have produced the factory’s first X One tyre ahead of schedule.
Michelin has launched the first steer axle truck tyre in its range to feature InfiniCoil architecture, one of the key innovations of Michelin Durable Technologies. The 315/60 R 22.5 Michelin X Energy XF is available as original equipment in Europe and will be exhibited on Michelin’s stand at the Commercial Vehicle Show. With a load carrying capacity of 7.5 tonnes (the same as a 315/70 R 22.5), this new tyre responds to the demand from vehicle manufacturers seeking tyres that increase the steer axle’s load-carrying capacity.
(Akron/Tire Review) Purcell Tire Co., based in Potsoi, Mo., has launched expanded retreading operations to handle giant OTR tyres with 51-inch or greater wheel diameters. Purcell officials said the company invested some $5 million in the upgrade, and claims to be the “only tyre retreading company in the world to offer segmented mold retread systems designed to produce both 4000R57 and 46/90R57 haulage tyres, as well as 52/80×57 through 55/80R57 tires.”
With the chronic shortage in heavy haulage tyres causing inflated prices and end users purchasing inferior quality products, the giant mining and resources company Rio Tinto has decided to take matters into their own hands. The company has announced that they have set up their own tyre retreading facility in Western Australia, not far from their sizable mining operations in the state’s Pilbara region.
Bridgestone is providing opportunities for the next generation of budding motorsport journalists to reveal their talents through its 2007 e-reporter initiative. The Europe-wide competition, now in its fourth year, offers up-and-coming writers with the chance to interview GP2 drivers and write in-depth race reports from a European GP2 race weekend.
Cryogenic technology will be employed in a new tyre reprocessing plant currently being set up in South Wales. The plant in Baglan, which will operate in conjunction with a £2 million pre-processing site in the Midlands town of Wednesbury, will be in operation by the end of May.
Hankook Tire Co., South Korea’s largest tiremaker, announced on February 23 its intention to spend 235 billion won (£130 million) building a new South Korean factory. The new tyre plant will be located at Geumsan, 198 kilometres south of Seoul, where the company has an existing plant with an annual capacity of 15 million units.
At present Hankook operates four tyre manufacturing facilities, two in South Korea and two in China. A fifth factory in Hungary is scheduled to enter production this spring.
The environmental division of BMH Wood Technology Oy has sold the world’s largest tyre shredder to a company in the UK. In July 2007 BMH will deliver a Tyrannosaurus plant to Credential Automotive Ltd. The plant will be able to process around 70,000 tonnes of used car tyres into shreds of approx. 60 mm in size each year. According to the company, the amount represents approx. 20 per cent of all used car tyres in the U.K.
Continental AG has announced that its 2006 sales and earning figures have, for the fifth time in a row, outperformed the previous year’s figures. The company’s Passenger and Light Truck Tires division increased its sales to 4,693.6 million euros (£3,156.5), up 5.6 per cent compared with 2005. Conti’s executive board chairman and person in charge of the division, Manfred Wennemer, said “In view of various negative impacts, particularly the 169 million euro increase in raw material costs, we have done a really good job, also in comparison with our competitors.” Sales volume was slightly higher than in 2005, with 106.3 million tyres sold.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has stated that its affiliate company in Poland plans to invest more than US$100 million to expand production of high-value tyres. The investment, which will be implemented during the next four years, will be made at Goodyear’s TC Debica plant, one of the company’s lowest cost facilities. The investment is consistent with Goodyear’s current strategy of upgrading and expanding existing capacity to produce HP and UHP tyres.
A South Korean company that recently bought an Akron tyre-mould maker plans to spend $2 million to expand its area operations and add as many as 70 employees in the next 18 months. Saehwa Machinery Co. Ltd., which bought Universal Tire Molds Inc. last fall, expects to open a 45,000-square-foot factory this summer on 10 acres in the Massillon Road Industrial Park, which is part of the Akron-Springfield Township joint economic development district. The company’s new president and chief executive is Sun Yong Hong.
Bridgestone India intends to increase its production capacity by 1,000 tyres a day to a daily capacity of 11,00 tyres at its plant in the central state of Madhya Pradesh and is gearing up to cater for the commercial vehicle market to a greater extent.
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