Six months after appointing Andrew Huntly as business development director, Halfords Autocentres is continuing to drive its fleet and affiliate business with the addition of two further BDMs. The new appointments bring Halfords Autocentres’ fleet account handling complement to six, demonstrating the business’ willingness to invest in the sector as part of ambitious growth targets.
Eldan Recycling recently delivered a complete tyre recycling plant in Papua New Guinea. According to the company this is designed to process all kinds of tyres including truck tyres and huge mining tyres that can be over four metres and a weigh several tons each. The system will produce 0-4 mm rubber granulate (99.9 per cent free of textile and steel) at approximately four tons per production hour.
Italy’s Marangoni has given its Marangoni Tread North America subsidiary the company’s ‘President’s Award’ for 2012; the North American operation gained this distinction due to its strong sales performance plus manufacturing and marketing development.
A few years ago people were asking if this fuel-saving thing is ever going to catch on. Now virtually every manufacturer has a fuel-saving line and a fuel-economy strategy – we even have mandatory product labels comparing products on the basis of this characteristic.
The Petrol Retailers' Association (PRA), representing the UK's independent forecourt retailers, welcomes the Deloitte Report 'Study of the UK petroleum retail market'. The report indisputably confirms that the majority fuel forecourts are running with dangerously low levels of stock and that the continued closure of forecourts is reducing onsite storage capacity across the country. The study found that independent forecourts are being forced to cut back stock levels to control working capital costs.
In the run-up to Nokian’s publication of fourth quarter financial results, some financial analysts are asking if the Finnish company’s earnings are losing traction. The reason is said to be that “decelerating Russian sales and an unexciting European winter tyre season are a recipe for disappointment”.
The world's largest transit agency has awarded a vehicle lift contract for 570 mobile columns to Rotary Lift. The manufacturer delivered the first set of lifts and provided training this week.
The American based transit agency conducted an exhaustive trial of the Rotary Lift mobile column lift side by side with two of its toughest competitors over 90 days, with testing taking place under real-world conditions at two different transit facilities that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At the end of the gruelling test period, the Rotary column lifts came out on top and was chosen for its easy operation, superior performance, low user cost and low maintenance costs over time.
Kian Hon Tyres Sdn. Bhd., the sole Malaysian distributor of the Maxxis tyre brand, is placing a greater focus on retreading the Taiwanese tyre maker’s products with the opening of an expanded retreading facility. The company says it has received the “full support and involvement” of Maxxis to construct a tread rubber production line and expand its retreading plant in Penang. Total capacity at the plant, which first entered operation in 1980, will increase to 120,000 retreads a year and 15,000 tread liners per month. The plant will be the primary retreading and tread liner production site for the Maxxis brand within the region.
Petlas Tire Corporation, which is known for producing the Petlas and Starmaxx brands, has announced that it has made substantial investments into expanding the agricultural radial tyre production capacity of its manufacturing plant. According to the company, the move reflects growing demand for Petlas and Starmaxx tyres from the European and North American agricultural markets. As a result of the expansion Petlas reports that it reached a annual capacity of 300,000 radial agricultural tyres – double previous levels – as of December 2012.
These days, two major trends within the European retreading sector are making the use of shearography systems increasingly necessary. First, casings are becoming harder to source due to weakness in the new tyre market and the growth in new tyre manufacturers’ involvement in retreading; they strive to retain ‘their’ casings within their own systems. Second, the focus on quality amongst medium-sized retreaders is becoming ever more important – both customers and the business’s competitive environment demand this. In an interview with Tyres & Accessories, market leader Steinbichler challenges those retreaders who continue to believe they can’t afford investments of 100,000 euros or higher: “For each of our customers, an investment in shearography has been crowned with economic success.”
Techking Tires has announced the completion of the greenfield factory that it, along with an unnamed partner, erected in China’s Shandong province. The plant is located in the city of Heze and will produce passenger car and light commercial vehicle tyres. Techking says the plant will have an end annual capacity of ten million tyres, an output that will be reached in two phases over a period of five to seven years. The Heze plant began trial operations in November 2012.
As announced at this year’s Brityrex, Bandvulc has added the Boto brand to its wholesale commercial tyre range. The company has now released a statement confirming the brand’s introduction, and in it Bandvulc writes that Boto has invested “over £250 million in people, technology and buildings to produce an annual production capacity of over 3.6 million Boto radial truck and bus tyres.”
Apollo Tyres intends to supply its Oragadam factory in India’s Tamil Nadu state with electricity produced in its own plant. The company plans to establish a 15 Megawatt coal-based thermal power plant at the site; the facility will consist of two 7.5 Megawatt units. In a statement, Apollo said the plant will improve overall efficiency and reduce pollution compared with separate power generation and process steam generation.
The China Petrochemical Corporation, or Sinopec, reports that the butadiene rubber factory built by its subsidiary Sinopec Yanshan has opened after a 20 month construction period. The new plant has an annual capacity of 30,000 tonnes.
A sharp decline in demand for tyres within the European Union is Bridgestone’s stated reason for cutbacks in Spain and France; travel to Hungary, however, and the picture looks entirely different. The tyre maker states it will treble production capacity of passenger car tyres at its Tatabánya plant in the coming years. One hundred per cent Bridgestone Europe-owned local subsidiary, Bridgestone Tatabánya Termelö Kft, will invest approximately 267 million euros to increase daily capacity from 6,000 tyres (as of June 2012) to 18,000 tyres. The expansion project is expected to be completed during the first half of 2017.
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.
