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AFRICA
Eng Mohamed Ibrahim Alkrdawy, General Manager, Marzi-Egypt
along the coast of
the Mediterranean
Sea in the north- central part of the country. It is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving approximately 80 per cent of Egypt's imports and exports and is an important industrial centre because of
its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. The plant is expected to be operational by early May and will retread around 500 TBR tyres initially. “The plant has locational advantage as it will cater to a region
of around 200 km covering Alexandria to the Capital Cairo,” Mohamed said. It will offer traditional hot cure as well precure versions with equipment and rubber sourced from Marangoni.
Mohamed added, “Finding suitable casings for retreading is one of the biggest challenges in Egypt. The government also prohibits the import of casings.” Marzi-Egypt has engaged with several companies, who are ready to send their tyres to get them retreaded at the new plant. “We have also approached the government to allow them to import good casings as retreading is environmentally friendly and is a type of recycling,” he stated.
If the Egypt venture progresses well on expected lines, Marzi- Egypt has plans to expand in other African markets. “If all goes well, we will open a second plant in Khartoum, Capital of Sudan in 2018,” he said.
retreading plant under the title Dynamic Retreading in the Zimbabwean Capital.
Dynamic retread around 200 tyres each month and expects gradual growth in the years to come. “We are
targeting a 500
tyres monthly
figure in the next
three years,” said
Patel, who was
visiting Tyrexpo
Africa for ideas
and meeting
South African
tread rubber
makers, as the
retreading
industry of the
Southern part of
Africa largely
depends on South Africa based retreaders.
Land-locked Zimbabwe has eight retreaders equally distributed among four big and four small. ‘The smaller retreaders like us are retreading about 200 tyres per month,’ he said. The big four are National Tyre (Bandag), Roadgrip (Leader), Trentyre
(Arctic) and Maxiprest, all operating at levels above 1000 tyres per month.
Shasha also plans to start a tyre retail business in the next five years. “The ideal business model
Ismail Patel of Shasha Treads
an annual average of US$10bn over the next three years, particularly in energy, real estate, and transport and logistics sectors, besides new infrastructure projects such as the Suez Canal development project, all of which are expected to improve the business scenario in Egypt.
Considering upcoming infrastructural projects; it appears that the retreading business will also benefit. In the light of these positive economic developments, Marzi-Egypt has decided to enter the retreading sector and has ordered a whole new Ring Tread plant with Marangoni in the port city of Alexandria. “The plant is under installation in the new Damietta Industrial Zone and is likely to be completed by the beginning of April,” said Eng Mohamed Ibrahim Alkrdawy, General Manager, Marzi-Egypt at Tyrexpo Africa recently.
Alexandria is the second largest city and a major economic centre in Egypt, extending about 32 km
would be to have retreads as well as a tyre retail business, so that we could offer new tyres along with an assurance of retreading in the future,’ explained Ismail Patel. The firm is known for providing quality truck tyre retreads covering over the road, on/off road applications as well as trailer/drive specific etc.
Marathon Tread Takes on Ringtread System
Durban based Leader Tread partner Marathon Tread has announced the recent introduction of Marangoni’s Ring Tread System into its portfolio. “We started using the Ringtread System of retreading around 5-6 months back,” informed Japie Snyders, Plant Manager, Marathon Tread KZN. “We have received a positive response from the market and we are improving numbers every month.” The company installed a ring tread builder at its plant but also offers the conventional precure version of retreading.
The decade old unit retreads around 120–130 tyres per day using Leader Tread rubber. Marathon has another plant in Cape Town, running almost on the same capacity. Japie Snyders joined the company about 18 months ago and is working on streamlining the operation.
“Production levels have improved marginally but, more importantly, we have been able to cut down claim rates significantly,” he said. Marathon has future expansion plans, which include adding more
equipment as well as moving to a new location. It has plans to commence double shifts in the next couple of months, which would increase the production to 1,500 tyres per month.
Currently, Marathon operates two plants with four tyre chambers – two 23 tyre, one 25 and one 12 tyre chamber. The company says it will add more equipment by October this year. “We may move to another location in the next couple of years and that would improve our volumes as well,” he said.
Japie Snyders, Plant Manager, Marathon Tread KZN
Shasha Treads Targeting
500 Tyres per Month in
Next 3 Years
Despite a general slowdown in Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe, based Shasha Treads is optimistic about the retreading sector and hopes to more than double production in the next three years. “The
economic scenario is not encouraging in the region leading to number of big fleet owners leaving the transport business,” said Ismail Patel of Shasha Treads, which operates its
48 Retreading Business