Tyres can’t function without this critical raw material. Whether its natural or synthetic rubber you are interested in, articles bearing this tag feature this indispensable polymer.
Cooper Tire & Rubber had a busy week at SEMA, revealing plans for a series of new tyres for some of its associate lines and talking up its green tyre success. Cooper officials said that sales of its first green line, the Cooper GFE, have been outstanding, and dealer and consumer feedback have been positive. The tyre was introduced earlier this year.
Toyo Tire & Rubber remained in the red during the first half of the current financial year, recording a net loss of 1,976 million yen (£13.24 million). Sales during the six months to September 30 dropped 25.0 per cent year-on-year to 129,609 million yen (£868.25 million), and operating loss amounted to 1,300 million yen (£8.71 million), compared with an operating income of 1,177 million yen in the first half of the 2008 financial year. The company’s tyre business unit generated 74.0 per cent of the company’s entire sales and posted a first-half net turnover of 96,001 million yen (£643.11 million) – a 21.6 per cent decrease from a year earlier.
The approval of operational permits and licensing means that Magnum D'Or Resources subsidiary Magnum Recycling USA is now able to supply waste tyres from its 120+ acre Hudson, Colorado landfill facility to Magnum’s planned recycling facility, where rubber powders and compounds such as those the company recently tested in light truck tyres will be manufactured.
The Cooper Kenda Tire joint venture factory in Kunshan, China has become the fourth Cooper Tire & Rubber facility to gain ISO 9001 certification. The plant’s ISO 9001:2008 quality management system certification follows last year’s certification of Cooper’s three US manufacturing facilities, Findlay, Ohio, Texarkana, Arkansas, and Tupelo, Mississippi.
The US based Rubber Manufacturers Association has announced the dates for its ninth annual National Tire Safety Week. In 2010 the event, an initiative of the RMA's "Be Tire Smart – Play Your PART" programme, will be held between June 6 and 12.
Thailand-based Vee Rubber launched three new tyres at the SEMA Show: Vitron, an all-season high performance tyre; Winter Season III, a studdable snow tyre; and Taiga Ice Axe, a studdable light truck snow tyre. The new lines are part of the company’s growing presence in North America. Sold through regional wholesalers and large tyre dealerships – those with 20-plus locations – Vee estimates it will sell six times as many tyres as in 2008, said Patrick Hyland, the company’s sales and marketing manager.
Next January Goodyear Tire & Rubber will cease offering its “Republic” associate tyre brand in North America. In hand with the dropping of Republic, the US tyre major will increase the profile of its Kelly brand through new products and making the range available to all dealers in its distribution network. Ditching the Republic brand also will reduce manufacturing complexity, Goodyear reports.
China is the world’s largest consumer of rubber, and growth in the use of compound rubber – a substance containing 99 per cent natural rubber but attracting 15 per cent less tax than its pure 100 per cent counterpart – is colossal. This year the country is expected to import 950,000 tons of compound rubber, a leap of almost 71 per cent from last year. Many rubber exporters in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are now focusing on producing compound rubber more to take advantage of China's import duty structure. "Compound rubber import volume was increasing in recent years because the customs tax was lower than [for] natural rubber," the China Rubber Research Institute said in a report prepared for an international conference in Vietnam.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. has appointed Brad Hughes as vice president and chief financial officer (CFO). Hughes succeeds Phil Weaver who retires at the end of the year. Weaver has served Cooper 19 for years and has been CFO since 1999.
The final version of the Environmental Agency and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) quality protocol has been released after approval by the European Commission. The 'Quality Protocol for Tyre-derived Rubber Materials', made public on November 3, finally provides a separate classification for rubber materials manufactured from waste tyres; classification as a product as opposed to a waste, as was previously the case, removes such items from waste regulation.
The recently released infra red tyre temperature and pressure monitoring system (IRTPTMS) from BERU f1systems has been selected as the 2009 Testing Technology of the Year at this year’s Professional Motorsport World exhibition. A panel of judges comprised of senior motorsport personalities, including an ex-Formula One driver, selected the DigiTyre IRTPTMS from Norfolk-based BERU f1systems to receive the award at the Cologne show.
Sales of cars in China increased more than 84 per cent in September, and for the first time passed the one million unit mark. In order to meet increasing demand from for automotive parts, Mitsui Chemicals and China Petroleum & Chemical (Sinopec), Asia’s largest oil refiner, plan to spend 60 billion yen (£406 million) to build two chemical factories in Shanghai. One of the plants will produce the synthetic rubber EPT, which is widely utilised in vehicle components.
Cooper Tire & Rubber’s Texarkana facility in the US state of Arkansas has received this year’s ‘Diamond Award for Excellence in Environmental Leadership’ from the Arkansas Environmental Federation. The award, states the tyre maker, recognises companies that demonstrate initiative or leadership in managing their environmental affairs.
Continental may buy Schaeffler Group’s automotive assets (namely LuK clutches and/or INA bearings) and then float its Rubber Group to pay for it. That’s the view of Klaus Pflum, head of investment bank Nomura's European automotive mergers and acquisitions operations, who made this prediction at the Reuters Auto Summit in Paris. In his view Continental is more likely to opt for an initial public offering (IPO) and this route may raise more money than a divestment and direct sale: "I don't see any banks who are willing to finance a four to five billion euro debt ticket,” Pflum told the conference.
The Rubber Manufacturers Association projects an approximately 13 per cent decline in US tyre shipments will occur in 2009, principally as a result of a sharp decrease in demand for original equipment passenger car and commercial vehicle tyres. Total tyre shipments are anticipated to reduce by approximately 36 million units to 246 million. The RMA notes this decrease reflects the “difficult economic environment for automotive manufacturers over the past year, continued low consumer confidence and high unemployment.” This year’s projected total shipments represents a 23.4 per cent decrease on the peak of 321 million units reached in 2000.
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