The organizing committee for Carbon Black ’19 Perspective in Asia-Pacific have announced that the conference will be held November 5-7, 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. The venue for the conference has not yet been decided. This conference is held every other year in Asia; the previous conference was held in November 2017 in Chennai, India.
Smithers Rapra along with Wolfersdorff Consulting have announced a new conference, the Recovered Carbon Black Congress, to be held May 21-22, 2019 in Berlin. The new conference is an extension of Smithers Rapra’s successful Carbon Black World conference, which is held every other year (most recently in Dusseldorf, Germany in September 2018). The Recovered Carbon Black Congress will address the commercial challenges and long-term potential for recovered carbon black, which is material recovered from scrap tires. The conference will include a range of technical discussions to provide a platform for the recovered carbon black supply chain to identify the challenges and solutions to drive forward this process. Notch Consulting will be delivering a paper during this conference covering the long-term commercial prospects for rCB.
Marangoni Tread North America is expanding tread rubber capacity at its plant in Madison, Tennessee to meet growing demand for its products.
“With unit sales up this year, production had to be increased right away. Independent retreaders’ business remains strong and we expect demand to continue to increase as we move into 2019. We will be adding additional capacity to manufacture the XP Extreme Performance wide-base Ringtread here in the US,” said Bill Sweatman, president and CEO of Marangoni Tread North America.
The new production line, expected to be in operation in the second quarter of 2019, will produce spliceless Ringtreads up to and including 500mm widths.
The project will boost the 14-year-old plant’s overall capacity by 20 percent, Marangoni said, and expand the workforce by 10 percent.
Marangoni Tread North America is a subsidiary of Rovereto, Italy-based Marangoni S.p.A., which recently disclosed plans for a global partnership with Borrachas Vipal S.A. of Brazil in what Marangoni said could become the largest global independent player in the retreading sector.
Referenced article found here.
Off-highway tire manufacturer Balkrishna Industries Ltd. (BKT) announced in November 2018 that it is budgeting $100 million to build its first tire plant in the U.S.
Minoo Mehta, president of BKT USA Inc., said 40 sites in several states are being considered, including sites in Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina, states where several plants have opened recently or are under construction. Sites in Alabama, Indiana, and Kentucky also are being considered.
The site will be chosen in January, according to Rajiv Poddar, joint managing director of BKT. He expects site preparation to take three to four months from the day they select the land. The target date for the plant to open is 24 months from the groundbreaking, likely the second quarter of 2021.
Bridgestone de Mexico S.A. de C.V. is planning to invest $100 million over the next two years to upgrade manufacturing capabilities at its car and light truck tire plant in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
The investment will support innovative processes and new technologies, while also building the plant’s capacity to produce high value-added tires such as run-flat tires and reduced rolling-resistance Ecopia models.
The 38-year-old plant in Mexico’s Morelos state has an installed capacity of approximately 25,000 tires per day, serving original equipment customers and the Mexican aftermarket as well as exports, Bridgestone said.
The Cuernavaca plant is one of two Bridgestone plants in Mexico. The other plant is in Monterrey. It opened in 2007 and produces car and light truck tires, largely for export.
Referenced article found here.
Goodyear plans to expand its plant in Kranj, Slovenia to increase capacity by approximately 25 percent by 2022.
“The demand for premium, larger-rim-diameter consumer tires is growing across EMEA. To ensure the sustainable growth of our business, Goodyear plans to invest €94 million ($107 million) in its plant in Kranj, Slovenia to increase its capacity in this profitable segment,” announced Henry Dumortier, Goodyear’s Vice President Consumer Europe.
The expansion will add more than 58,000 square feet to the factory that Goodyear has owned since 1998. It will boost capacity by 1.8 million units a year and create up to 160 jobs, Goodyear said. Production will focus on replacement tires with 17- to 19-inch rim diameters. Current annual capacity is listed as about 8 million units with 1600 employees.
The first phase of construction will begin in January 2019, with additional phases planned for 2020 and 2021 to reach full capacity.
Referenced article found here.
Orion Engineered Carbons has announced that it is adding an Environmental Compliance Surcharge or “EPA surcharge” to its price agreements for all customers of products produced in North America for 2019.
The surcharge is intended to offset the incremental variable costs associated with Orion’s compliance with its 2017 consent decree with the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Justice. The company will review the surcharge on a quarterly basis for adjustment as costs become known. Orion Engineered Carbons will implement a 1.5 cent ($0.015) per pound EPA Surcharge, or price adjustment, as of April 1st, 2019. The Surcharge will be added to all invoices for customers purchasing products produced by one of Orion’s plants in North America and sold by our Rubber and Specialty Carbon Black business units.
Tokai Carbon CB Ltd. (formerly Sid Richardson) also has announced plans to implement a surcharge for North American customers to cover approximately $100 million in environmental investments at its three US plants.
Citing economic conditions and the negative effects of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, Goodyear’s Venezuelan subsidiary, CA Goodyear de Venezuela, is ceasing production at its 62-year-old factory in Valencia.
“Goodyear-Venezuela has made the difficult decision to stop producing tires,” the Ohio-based company said in a statement. “Our goal had been to maintain its operations, but economic conditions and U.S. sanctions have made this impossible.”
Immediately after Goodyear announced its closure, Venezuela’s government said it would reactivate the company’s assembly line in an attempt to preserve some of the 1160 jobs that will be lost.
However, Goodyear workers aren’t holding their breath. The government has made similar pledges following other plant closures in the past only to see its efforts fall short.
Last week, Cancarb Limited, a subsidiary of Japan-based Tokai Carbon, announced that it is adding a sixth production unit for thermal carbon black at its plant in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. Engineering and construction on the unit will begin immediately and is scheduled for completion by the summer of 2020. The new unit will add 9,000 tons per year of capacity to bring plant capacity to 54,000 tons per year. The unit will produce Cancarb’s Thermax medium thermal carbon black. The new unit also will add 5 MW of recovered waste heat power for a plant total of 32.5 MW.
Continental A.G. has inaugurated its laboratory in Anklam, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, for research into the production of rubber from the Russian dandelion, one year after breaking ground on the 323,000-sq.-ft. facility.
The Taraxagum Lab Anklam, which represents an investment of nearly $40 million, is dedicated to the study of dandelion rubber farming and extraction methods, working toward producing an alternative to traditional rubber tree plantations in the tropics.
Nikolai Setzer, a member of the Continental board and head of its Tire division, noted that the company intends to use dandelion rubber routinely within the next 10 years. The ultimate goal, he added, is for Taraxagum-branded products to meet a significant part of the company’s natural rubber requirement.
“We see Russian dandelion as an important alternative and complement to conventional natural rubber from hevea brasiliensis to allow us to meet rising global demand in an environmentally compatible and reliable way,” Mr. Setzer said.
Read the full press release here.
