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TURKEY
Ishakoglu to Build Second Factory in European Istanbul
retreads each month, 1,000 tyres by the hot process and 2,000 by the precure process.
Equipped with two autoclaves of 24 and 20 tyres respectively, sourced from Akar Makina and TRM, Ovakent also retreads 150 OTR tyres up to 51” diameter by all three processes.
The Izmir plant also retreads using Marangoni’s Ring Tread system. “70 per cent of our production is retreaded using the home brands Maxigold (premium) and Silverline
Bilecik. “Aliağa is situated at about 50 km north of Izmir and is key port city. It’s a precure TBR plant and retreads around 500 tyres each month,” he said.
A separate new retread plant has also been opened in the middle of July at the Billas new tyre factory at Bilecik. It operates under the Ovakent brand. Billas manufactures tread rubber at the Bilecik plant and supplies to group company Ovakent and its various retread operations in Turkey. “We are looking to operate
Evren Marufoğlu of İshakoğlu Lastik
Mehmet Tanuroglu, Plant Head, Ovakant Lastik Kaplama with new Plant Manager (Manufacturing), Serdar Gümüsigne (middle) and Yasin Sarikulak of Akar Makina
İshakoğlu Lastik is planning to expand on the European side of Istanbul by setting-up a new factory. Currently, it has a plant in Gebze, a district of Kocaeli Province, about 30 km from Istanbul. “We are thinking in terms of having a TBR retread plant on the European side of Istanbul. We have a customer base on the European side, and we feel it should be catered from the second plant as our current plant is rather distant on the outskirts of Asian Istanbul,” revealed Evren Marufoğlu of 􏰀shakoğlu Lastik. Besides tyre retreading, the 􏰀shakoğlu Group sells Pirelli and multi-brand tyres and batteries through Esan Akü dealerships. The diversified group also engages in the business of sugar, fuel and logistics. The Gebze plant retreads on average 600-650 TBR tyres each month, and the proposed second plant would be of a similar size. “We have yet to take a final decision on the second plant, but it certainly is in the pipeline,” he said.
The Gebze plant opened three years ago on the key highway that
connects the Asian side of Istanbul to the European side to service truck tyres of the company fleet. “We are actually a logistics company with around 30 trucks, and this plant was opened to retread tyres for our own fleet,” he explained. However, the size of the fleet has halved over three years due to an optimisation plan designed to cut fleet operation costs. However, the company has now expanded into new tyre sales, retreads and tyre repairs for outside fleets also.
The plant has one 22-tyre Akar Makina autoclave plus other machiner y. The plant offers retreads with various rubber options including Novateck from Pirelli, Silvermax from Billas and Herkul from Rekor. Since, the company is a Pirelli dealer, the majority (75 per cent) of the rubber used is from Novateck.
The retreader is positive about the retread market in Turkey and said, “the Turkish government has imposed anti-dumping duties on the import of Chinese tyres for five more years and that will positively impact the retreading industry in the near future.”
Despite the absence of Chinese tyres, the market remains highly competitive due to the presence of a large number of retreaders. The prices of raw materials are also increasing, but the end users are not willing to pay the price. “Our cost of production is increasing and margins are coming down,” he observed.
(budget), while the remaining 30 per cent is Marangoni,” said Mehmet Tanuroglu, Plant Head, Ovakent Lastik Kaplama.
Ovakent has recently increased its presence in the domestic market by opening new plants at Aliağa and
the Bilecik retread plant at around 1000 tyres per month,” he said. The Izmir based mother plant of Ovakent has Akar Makina equipment, whereas the rest of the plants have machinery supplied by other local producers.
Atli Otomotiv: Marangoni Dealer Hikes Capacity
Ovakent Adds Equipment at Izmir - Opens Plants at Aliaga & Bilecik
One of the largest retreaders in Turkey, Atli Otomotiv has hiked capacity at its Istanbul retreading facility. “We raised the capacity by about 30 per cent around a year ago, installing a new 24-tyre autoclave from Scholz, Germany,” informed Berk Atli. Hitherto, the plant had been equipped with two autoclaves of 18 tyres each from TRM, Italy and another from a local fabricator. The company retreads on average 40,000 tyres annually.
“We are maintaining production levels at 40,000 retreads a year despite the slow economy, weak Turkish Lira and the presence of budget tyre brands in the domestic market,” observed Atli.
Atli Otomotiv uses Marangoni’s Ringtread system as well as Eversafe tread from Malaysia. It also sends casing to Bandag to get them retreaded. The company sources almost 800 tonnes of tread rubber, cushion gum and repair material annually to consume and market locally as well as selling to
adjoining countries. “We introduced Marangoni’s Blackline tread range about a year and a half ago, it reduces the cost of ownership for fleet operators of any size and offers key advantages such as low rolling resistance leading to low cost per km,” he explained.
Atli Otomotiv group company Atlas Otomotiv is the sole distributor for Malaysian tread rubber brand Eversafe in the markets of Turkey, Germany, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Jordan. Besides tread rubber, Atlas also markets cushion gum, repair cement, accessories such as buffing blades, and envelopes from Eversafe.
The company says it hiked capacity last year as it is optimistic about the future of the retreading industry in Turkey due to big-ticket construction projects announced by the government as well as improving road quality. “Some of the ambitious projects such as the Kanal Istanbul project and the
Izmir based Ovakent Lastik Kaplama has recently installed a CNC buffer sourced from major domestic retread equipment producer Akar Makina. It also added a cushion gum extruder four
months ago, again supplied by Akar. Ovakent offers retreading by both conventional and precure processes for TBR as well as OTR (also Orbitread in OTR).
The plant produces 3,000 truck
38 Retreading Business