Toyo Tires expanding capacity in Malaysia, USA
A total of around 35 billion yen (£234.2 million) will be invested in increasing production capacity at Toyo Tire & Rubber tyre plants in Malaysia and the USA.
A total of around 35 billion yen (£234.2 million) will be invested in increasing production capacity at Toyo Tire & Rubber tyre plants in Malaysia and the USA.
This year, the Hixih Rubber Industry Group is investing nearly RMB 6 billion (£682.3 million) in its two subsidiaries, Shenzhou Tire and Tongli Tire. Two separate projects will see the creation of a new car tyre facility and a doubling of capacity for all-steel truck radials.
According to a news report from Japan, production capacity at the Sumitomo Rubber (Hunan) Co. Ltd passenger car tyre plant in Changsa, China will treble by 2020. Nikkei Asian Review writes that Sumitomo Rubber Industries will invest some 30 billion yen (£205 million) in its subsidiary to increase daily output from 20,000 to 60,000 pieces. The publication adds that the company aims for a daily capacity of 100,000 passenger car tyres in China, an amount that anticipates growing demand for fuel-saving tyres.
In its year-end 2016 report, Sweden’s Trelleborg AB states that its Board of Directors has “decided to make a major investment” in Trelleborg Wheel Systems’ tyre operation in Serbia in order to improve the facility’s footprint and increase production capacity to accommodate additional future sales.
It is 20 years since Yokohama Rubber established its Yokohama Tire Philippines, Inc. (YPTI) passenger car tyre manufacturing and sales subsidiary and commenced work on a new plant.
Bridgestone recently announced its intention to increase capacity for radial aircraft tyre production at its Kurume plant in Japan. The company has now amended the statement it released on 17 October, changing the investment amount; rather than investing US$2.1 billion in the project as previously reported, Bridgestone states that the actual investment figure is 2.1 billion yen (£16.5 million).
Capacity for radial aircraft tyre production at Bridgestone’s Kurume plant in Japan is set to increase in response to an anticipated rise in demand for these products over the medium to long-term. Bridgestone Corporation will invest a total of US$2.1 billion in the project; while the company hasn’t reported the size of its planned capacity increase, it states that the project should be complete by the end of 2018.
Examation, a new tyre manufacturing system from Bridgestone Corporation that combines technologies from the company’s BIRD production system with artificial intelligence, will be introduced into Bridgestone’s Tatabánya car tyre factory in Hungary this year. Following the system’s set-up in Hungary, Bridgestone will then introduce Examation in its new plant in Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russia, which is expected to commence production in the final quarter of 2016.
Pirelli has now made tyres in Romania for a decade, and during a ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of the start of production in Slatina, the company announced plans to further invest in the site. Around €200 million will be invested in the Slatina plant through to 2021; as a result, annual production capacity will reach 15 million tyres, 5 million more than the current level. Some 500 new jobs will be created through the investment.
Production capacity for passenger car and light truck tyres at Sumitomo Rubber Industries’ (SRI) Tonawanda factory in the US will double by the end of 2019 as part of a US$87 million investment the company will make over the coming four years. The Tonawanda site came under SRI ownership following the dissolution of the Japanese manufacturer’s global alliance with Goodyear Tire and Rubber last October, and the capacity increase will facilitate the tyre maker’s growing reliance upon the plant for meeting North American market demand.
In order to furnish the Brazilian market with a steady supply of locally-made products, Japan’s Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. is investing 312 million real (£73.0 million) to add a truck and bus tyre manufacturing capability to its site in Fazenda Rio Grande, Paraná state. The investment will cover the cost of erecting a new premises adjacent to the existing passenger car and truck tyre manufacturing facility as well as new production equipment. A March 2019 start to truck and bus tyre manufacture is scheduled, and the initial capacity will be 500 tyres per day.
ZC Rubber has hosted its first European dealer meeting in Germany, designed to further development and marketing strategy in the market. Hosting “hundreds of partners and dealers,” Shen Jinrong, president of ZC Rubber, introduced the company mission: “To supply safe and value to global market”.
Bridgestone Canada Inc. (Bridgestone) is expanding its Canadian passenger and light truck tyre manufacturing facility in Joliette, Quebec, as part of a five-year investment that could total upwards of CA$300 million (£160 million). Groundbreaking for this multi-phase expansion of the facility is expected to occur this year; new plant equipment will be phased in over a five-year period in an effort to help the plant support the North American market and meet demand for larger diameter tyres, such as those fitted to modern pickup trucks and SUVs. The project will lift plant capacity by 3,000 tyres per day to bring daily production to 20,000 tyres by 2023.
Over the next two years, production capacity for 18-inch and larger high-performance tyres will increase by about 20 per cent at Yokohama rubber’s Shinshiro plant in Japan in order to meet growing demand for these highly profitable products. Work on a new plant production line will begin this May. This will go on stream in June 2017 and reach full capacity by the following April.
Bridgestone Corporation reported yesterday that plans to treble capacity at its Tatabánya plant in Hungary will be realised by 2020 rather than in the first half of 2017, as previously anticipated. The project to boost production capacity at the Bridgestone Tatabánya Termelö Kft facility from 6,000 to 18,000 passenger car tyres a day was announced in October 2012, and ground broke on the €267 million expansion the following summer.
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