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RUSSIA
transport companies to bring their casings to our plant and even importing them from the neighbouring Russian regions,” Yadrishnikov said.
At the same time, the shortage of casings is primarily associated with the lack of culture of proper tyre use among the transport companies. According to the estimations of Technoshina, as the result nowadays in Russia only 1- 2 per cent of truck tyres go to retread plants.
“It is hard to say whether the situation with casings will change for the better or not. We didn’t see the proper use of tyres in Soviet Union, we don’t see it now”, he admitted.
At the same time, Technoshina has never purchased imported casings. The thing is that with the payment of all the duties, taxes and the logistics spends, the final cost of a casing would be around Rub 3,000 – 4,000 (US$51-68), and this is too expensive.
In general, this is not surprising, because retreaders in the central part of Russia are used to purchasing imported casings, while retreaders in remote regions consider such practice as too expensive. Just to reach Novosibirsk, from the Russia’s most western region, Kaliningrad Oblast, the tyre will have to travel for 4,600 km and it would have to make that trip by land.
“There are companies in Russia, which import casings from Europe, and offer them to the retreading plants. However, we are not taking them, because the price is too high,” Yadrishnikov said.
A new beginning
While in central Russia the retreading plants still face a heavy competitive fight against cheap Chinese tyres, in Siberia the situation is different.
According to Yadrishnikov, the protective duties, introduced in early 2017 have made cheap Chinese tyres completely uncompetitive at the local market. “In fact, they were uncompetitive even before, because the mileage was only around 100,000 km, as compared to 150,000 – 200,000 km for a retreaded tyre. However, the new duties have additionally raised their price in our region, so it is simply unreasonable for the transport companies from the point of view of economy to purchase them anymore,” Yadrishnikov said.
In this regard, Technoshina considers the current situation at the market as very attractive for expansion, so in coming month it plans to finish the construction of the new building for the plant and transfer the entire production process into it.
“Our target is to reach a sustainable level of monthly production performance of around 500 tyres. In the new building, where ever ything will be designed to meet our needs, it should be easier to achieve it, although the problem of casings is not going to go away”, he noted.
The company plans to take equipment from the old facility to the new one in late 2017. Technoshina uses only the equipment of Western brands,
including Marangoni, Bandag and Bandamatic, the same applies to raw materials.
“We are using Ringtread treads, and Bandamatic, as an alternative, can give 150,000 km, while Marangoni will attain 250,000 km, just like a good new tyre,” Yadrishnikov said. It is important to offer a good mileage, simply because it affects the psychology of truck drivers. It turns out that the transport companies listen to drivers and what
they say about tyres, while for the drivers themselves it was “of a high-prestige” to use a new Michelin or Goodyear, so as a rule they were asking for the installation of these new brands. However, it seems that the times have changed, and nowadays the
drivers care about the mileage, so they are speaking against the Chinese tyres and often in favour of retreaded tyres. In the opinion of Yadrishnikov, this is the wind of change that promises additional benefits to the regional retreading market in the near future.
Smart Tyres to Support Russian Domestic Retreading
New smart tyres under the brand name K ama manufactured by Russia’s company Tatneft should bring benefit for the domestic retreading industr y in the countr y, according to the company’s statement released in late September.
Tatneft is one of the largest oil producers in Russia, but in addition to its core business the company is also running a plant for production of tyres near the city of Kazan. In this segment, Tatneft has recently declared an intention to start manufacturing so-called smart tyres,
choose the best time to withdraw the tyre and send it for retreading. Speaking about the advantages of the new tyres, Anvar Vahitov, the director of Tatneft-Neftehim, one of the company’s subsidiaries, said that it could be retreaded in the right time. He also promised to show the system to its customers, as the company now plans to manufacture a test batch of several hundred smart tyres and deliver them to the market.
In future they could be retreaded, probably more than once, while if the experiment goes well, in 2018
featuring the special radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags.
The technology has never been used in the Russia’s tyre industr y before, Tatneft said. However, the company has pledged to start its full-scale production already in a “foreseeable future”. The idea is that the tyre leaves its digital trace in the database at ever y stage of the supply chain, from manufacturing, storing at the warehouse and retreading, up until end of life. Transport companies will install a reading device in a gate of the transfer platform and it will copy the data each time the truck comes or goes. As a result, in a special database, the operator can easily check what the mileage already covered is for ever y particular tyre, and, respectively, the company can
the company plans to produce Kama tyres with the use of new technology.
Tatneft will send a reminder to the customers about the need to change the tyre or send the used tyre to retreading, the company’s statement explained. As the result, the company plans to establish a system of “smart logistics” for its tyres, which also includes retreading. According to the press-service of the economic department of the Republic of Tatarstan, it is expected that the new system will bring several advantages to the customers. In the first place, it would be almost impossible to steal a tyre at any stages of its life. Additionally, the physical condition of ever y tyre could be easily checked, and this should significantly contribute to
46 Retreading Business