Page 68 - RB-78-16-3

INDIA
Naveen Nair, Manager,
International Business, Eastern Tread
Bangladesh, Bhutan etc. It is also keen to expand its footprint in the Eastern Europe market. “We participated at the Reifen show in Germany last month and met clients showing interest in working with us. We hope to start working with them soon,” said Nair.
Eastern also diversified
into retreading last year as part of its ambitious plans to have
one model retread plant in every state. “The model retread plants, known as ‘Process Evaluation Centres’, are designed to showcase in- house demonstrations of product application and quality.
“We have already opened two Process Evaluation Centres in the South Indian cities of Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and Bangalore (Karnataka),’ Nair confirmed.
To further tighten its grip on its tread rubber business, Eastern has already appointed 66 franchisees across India with plans to cross 100 during 2016. “Among the 66 franchisees, 21 are ‘Exclusive Infinity Zones’, using only the premium products,” Nair said.
conventional system and has precure tyre retread capacity of 1,500 tyres each month.
Blackstone Rubber is one of the first retreading companies in India to acquire ISO 9001 certification for its retreading and rubber operations. It has formed a pan-India network to cater to its wide clientele spread across almost all states of the country.
It now holds accounts of some of the largest state transport companies from Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.
Blackstone Rubber has plans to expand its network into the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and UAE in the Middle East.
Calcutta Retreads Pins Hopes on GST bill
Rising competition among retreaders and easy availability of domestic tread rubber brands at competitive prices is putting pressure on the volumes of Bengal based retreaders. “We used to retread more than 600 tyres each month about couple of years back, but now monthly production has dropped to 450 – 500 tyres,” said Ashwini Mundhra of Howrah (near Kolkata) based Calcutta Retreads (P) Ltd.
The retreading company continues to focus on bringing its volumes back to earlier levels. “The market is down, and until truck movements improve, the sentiment would remain weak,” he said. Calcutta Retreads has been a Treadsdirect franchisee for the last 25 years.
The increasing number of retreaders has also led to the lowering of volumes as the tyres are distributed among new retread plants that are coming up in the Howrah area. “There are around 20 retread plants in Howrah now, and some of them have appeared in the last five years, bringing down the prices in the region,” he said. Moreover, all kinds of domestic brands like Midas, Eastern, Indag have supplies to the plants in Howrah. “These tread rubber brands are priced competitively compared to Treadsdirect,” he added.
The plant has two autoclaves of 8 and 2 tyres respectively and sources round 60 tonnes of tread annually from Coimbatore based Treadsdirect. It focuses on customer casings and
covers an area of 30 km.
Calcutta Retreads is now pinning its hopes on Central Government’s plans to roll-out the much awaited goods
services tax (GST) in the upcoming session of the Indian Parliament that starts from July 18. The proposed GST would replace the chaotic structure that involves multiple federal and state levies on the movement of goods among the states. “The implementation of GST will directly impact the logistic sector and there is a hope the business scenario would improve after its implementation,” he said. The majority of the company’s clients belongs to the gas tanker industry as they are the biggest clients of the retreading industry in Bengal.
Ashwini Mundhra of Howrah (near Kolkata) based Calcutta Retreads (P) Ltd
buffing blades, rasp blades etc. in the near future after adding curing envelopes”, he said.
Eastern Tread is also working on mining designs as mining activity in India is starting to open up after the country’s apex court lifted its ban on mining. In a recent notification, the government has given approval to auction a total of 42 blocks identified in seven states in the second phase of mineral auctions during 2016-17. The move is expected to spur mining activity in the country.
Eastern Tread entered into export markets in 2014 and is shipping on average 4 containers to the various world markets in South America, Africa, Middle East, Nepal,
Blackstone Rubber Adds Chemical Patches
Blackstone Rubber Industries Pvt Ltd has started making chemical cure patches with effect from the beginning of 2016. “Chemical cure patches are lighter in weight, have extraordinary shelf life, and are highly flexible as it flexes as the tyre flexes,” explained V Subramanian, Director, Technical, Blackstone Rubber Industries Pvt Ltd at Tyrexpo India 2016 at New Delhi.
The Jodhpur, Rajasthan based company has started exporting the patches to the markets of South Africa, UAE, Vietnam and the Philippines. It also plans to exports the patches to the European market. “We are in the process of finalising a distributor in Central Europe to cater to the whole European market,” informed Ankur Dhoot, Chief Manager, Blackstone Rubber.
Established in 1985, Blackstone Rubber manufactures and
supplies a variety of products including nylon tyre patches, radial tyre patches, OTR tyre patches, tyre related tools, tyre removal tools, retreaded tyres, new tyres, tubes and flaps. Currently, the company produces six 20ft containers of patches in two shifts each month. It offers almost 1,000 items in the domain of tyre care, repair and service.
Blackstone Rubber Industries Pvt. Ltd. Claims a position as one of the leading company in retreading and other related products in the Western Indian state of Rajasthan. It started precure retreading in 2014. The company have a plant in Jodhpur, the second largest city in the state of Rajasthan and has been in the
business of retreading from the mid-eighties. The company retreaded tyres by the conventional hot process for many years, but with increasing radialisation in the country, it decided to expand on the precure side in 2014. It retreads around 500 tyres by the
Marudhar to Modernise Retreading Plants
With the infrastructure projects being announced by the Central Government and the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) within the next year, the retreading industry is hoping for a turnaround in the near future. Some retreaders are planning to modernise their plants in the lean period in order to prepare for better times ahead.
“We are planning to modernise our plant and are looking for new equipment like buffers and builders to make the operation easier. We are looking for the latest computerised
machinery and have seen it at the Elgi stand at the show,” said N P Mathur, Director, Marudhar Tyre & Treads Pvt Ltd at the Tyrexpo India recently. Marudhar Tyre is one of the largest retreading companies in Rajasthan.
The company has two operational plants in Jaipur and modernisation would be carried out at both facilities over the course of the next year. “The idea is to introduce more automation to reduce dependence on labour in the plants,” he emphasised.
V Subramanian, Director, Technical with Ankur Dhoot, Chief Manager, Blackstone Rubber Industries Pvt Ltd
68 Retreading Business