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RUSSIA
Russian Retreading Pioneer
However, the plant had no option, but to retread at least some of these tyres.
“The solution was eventually found. We heated all casings in the autoclave, and then we looked at those that withstood the high temperatures. Those that did were accepted for retreading. We had to run the autoclave twice during the retreading cycle, but that was the only way of dealing with the tyres that were not originally designed to be retreaded,” Annikov explained. When tubeless tyres emerged on the market, this made the life for the retreading plant much easier, although almost simultaneously with that, the Soviet Union fell apart, and consequently Sovtransavto ceased to
exist as a single transport organisation.
“When that happened, Sovtransavto’s regional branches started living their own lives. They got new owners with their own opinions about retreading. Some of them purchased their own retreading lines, while others opted to not supply their used tyres for retreading at all. Nowadays, only the former Sovtransavto branch from the city of Smolensk remains amongst our clients for old times’ sake,” Annikov said.
Considering Yourself
The present situation in the Russian retreading industry is harsh,
Remtransshina has an imposing entrance
Remtransshina was among the first plants to use cold retreading technology in the Soviet Union. Established in 1993, this Bryansk- based company for some time was retreading truck tyres from all over the country. Today, Remtransshina is not that strong, but it has its own niche, as the company retreads Russian tyres under the Cordiant and Kama brands.
Originally the plant was established within the Sovtransavto organisation. This was the biggest international cargo carrier in the Soviet Union with thousands of trucks operating on the routes linking Europe and Asia. At that time, cold retreading in the Soviet Union was considered a breakthrough technology, Vladimir Annikov, General Director of Remtransshina recalled.
“There were some plants using the hot retreading technology – they were operating in pre-historical ways, while cold retreading was something brand new,” Annikov said.
“To have an idea what cold retreading is, Sovtransavto’s headquarter purchased a Bandag retreading line and arranged a contest amongst its regional divisions. The task was to create the production site that would house the new equipment. Our branch was the first one to fulfill that requirement, and after our plant had been approved by Bandag, we had got the new equipment,” Annikov added.
In the following years, all of Sovtransavto’s divisions, each of which was a major cargo carrier in its region of the Soviet Union, was sending the used tyres to the plant. “At that time, the tyre market in the country was different. Almost everything we had used tubed tyres. There were almost no tubeless tyres at all. And tubed tyres were produced at the Nizhnyaya Kama production facilities,” Annikov noted.
These Nizhnyaya Kama tyres were a real challenge for the plant. It was absolutely unpredictable what would happen with these tyres when they were heated. They could blow, or some bump could emerge, or something else could happen. Most
of these tyres were really far from the casings standards acknowledged in the retreading industry now.