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SOUTH AFRICA
Tyre Corporation to Open Second Plant in Mozambique
Goodyear Reorganises Retreading at Trentyre
Since its establishment in 2005, Tyre Corporation has continued to expand nationally and within the sub-Saharan African markets, as a privately owned entity in the new and retreading sectors. Tyre Corporation has also opened truck and bus tyre precure retreading plants in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria, Kimberly, Durban and Johannesburg, as well as having an established earthmoving retreading factory in Johannesburg. “In addition to these we operate a truck tyre retreading plant in Maputo, Mozambique,” said Colin Brown, Managing Director, Tyre Corporation. The company is strategically located in key regions in South Africa with targeted expansion in the neighbouring African states. “We have service and distribution centres in Namibia, Botswana and the copper belt of Zambia. We are moving into the Zimbabwe market by opening a distribution and service centre in the next six months,” Brown stated. Tyre Corporation is similarly looking at starting service centres in other key East African markets.
Meanwhile, it already has planned another retreading plant in Mozambique. “We are looking to open a truck retread plant in Beira,
“Tyre Corporation has been affected as some mines have shut down, some are planning to close and others have scaled down their operations in the interim,” said Colin Brown. Moreover, the local players have started importing products from China and India taking advantage of the weakening Rand and the unabated hike in raw material prices. “The industry is facing difficult times and it is not easy to survive in the evolving scenario,” he observed.
Tyre Corporation manufactures tread rubber for its own in-house consumption at its plant in Natal. Colin declined to comment on the volumes of precure tread produced by the Natal plant. “Sharing production figures is sensitive information and we prefer not to comment on precure tread quantity or tyre volumes retreaded at our various plant locations,” he stressed. He further added, “We manufacture for our own use and do not sell in the open market.”
Tyre Corporation has emerged as a significant player in the OTR segment of the South African market. It has sizeable market share in under 49-inch OTR range, competing in this segment with Max-T and Trentyre, and on the
Goodyear will soon be shifting its South African tread manufacturing operation to Trentyre’s Johannesburg facility. Currently, Goodyear manufactures tread rubber at its new tyre facility at its Uitenhage plant based at Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape province. “We are running a split facility at the moment, the Johannesburg plant merely does buffing and cementing - the precure tread is supplied from the Goodyear plant,” said Sylvain de Maudave, Technical Director Retail, Trentyre (Pty) Ltd. He further added, “Compounding would remain with Goodyear but tread rubber would be manufactured in the Trentyre, Johannesburg plant from this year and transported here in slab-stock form”.
facility in Zambia beside its truck retreading plant there. Trentyre has a dozen truck tyre retreading plants spilled over the whole of South Africa along with one solid tyre retread plant in Johannesburg. It feeds the South African and Sub-Saharan operations from its Johannesburg plant. “We have one Orbitread plant retreading OTRs at Harting, which caters to the domestic market as well as OTRs collected from the sub-Saharan countries of Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe,” Sylvain informed.
The company manufactures precure tread rubber for its domestic and Sub- Saharan retreading plants. “We do not supply precure tread rubber in the open market, whereas, with Orbitread, we cater to the open market” he said.
Sylvain de Maudave, Technical Director Retail, Trentyre (Pty) Ltd with Scott Gibson, Retread Sales Manager, Goodyear SA (Pty) Ltd
Colin Brown, Managing Director, Tyre Corporation
Mozambique by December 2013,” Brown informed. The proposed retreading factory is likely to operate at 2000 units capacity per month. “Our strategy is to increase Tyre Corporation’s footprint in Southern and Sub-Saharan Africa, concentrating on the bus, truck and earthmoving sectors,” emphasised Colin Brown.
Whilst the recent volatility and strikes in the mining sector have narrowed its volumes, the company has nevertheless coped well. The demand for increased wages has subsequently been resolved; however, the action has negatively impacted on the mining houses.
truck retread side with Bandag and Leader Tread.
Tyre Corporation has recently launched one-drive tread, two off- road and two trailer-tread patterns under the Titan brand. The company runs its plant on imported and indigenous equipment. “We imported equipment from China and Europe,” Colin added. Equipment was also purchased from the Durban based Kraiburg plant when it closed down. In the new tyre product range, Tyre Corporation imports from China, Korea, India, Europe and the United States.
The Johannesburg plant is gearing up for the shift as a lot of new equipment ordered by Trentyre will soon be arriving and then the installation process can begin. “The plant should be shifted in July and production could begin in September this year,” said Sylvain.
Trentyre manufactures tread in two separate brands - precure tread under the brand ‘Arctic’ and Orbitread, bonding gum and extruded rubber in the ‘Polar’ brand.
Trentyre declined to give any exact production figures as it is confidential information. When asked whether the shifting of the tread making operation to Johannesburg would allow Trentyre to hike production, Sylvain replied, “There would definitely be a hike in production but we could not comment on any percentage increase at this point of time.” Interestingly, the company has also blueprinted a retread selling plan, gearing up for the shift in the retreading operation.
Trentyre has widespread retreading operations in South Africa and Sub- Saharan Africa with plants spread all over the country and in the neighbouring African states. It has truck tyre retreading plants in Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and in Zimbabwe. It has one earthmoving
Altogether, 80 per cent of Trentyre’s business comes from its domestic operations and the remaining 20 per cent from the sub-Saharan retreading plants. 95 per cent of its tread rubber is consumed by retreading truck tyres and remaining 5 per cent by light commercial vehicles (LCV).
Trentyre competes with Max-T Solutions, Leader Tread and Bandag in the domestic market. All of these companies manufacture tread, consumed by their various retreading plants in and out of the country. Responding to a query on whether it is a top or middle end player, Sylvain commented, “We have the ability to do both, however we consider our product as top-end.”
Commenting on the challenges in the South African market Sylvain said, “The rising influx of cheap Asian tyres, which are not good for retreading; the introduction of toll roads and waste tyre management may overburden the transporters margins and lead to hikes in transport costs.”
This plan will be funded through a per-kilogram levy on tyres manufactured in or imported into South Africa including imported casings for retreading. The rand per- kilogram cost is currently estimated at R2.30/kg.
48 Retreading Business