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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Al Jazeera Polymers Focus on Hot Retreading System
With the changing market preferences, Ras Al Khaimah based retreader Al Jazeera Polymers has switched the majority of its production to the conventional process. Established in 2006, the company started as a majority precure system retreader, but had shifted towards the cold process in a major way over in the last few years and grabbed a predominant share in the UAE market.
“We retread about 1,800 tyres per month, 1,500 with the hot process and 300 by the precure system, as demand for hot retreading is surging to avoid penalisation by the UAE authorities for fitting precure retreads. The gradual shift towards the traditional system started in 2012,” informed David Joby of Al Jazeera Polymers LLC.
With demand for hot retreads on the rise, hot retreads are priced higher and bring better margins but have further
reduced the price gap
between new Chinese
tyres and retreads.
“Hot retreads are
priced at AED 475
and new Chinese
tyres are available in
the market at an
average AED 500-
600, while precured
retreads are priced
between AED 300-
400,” he explained. Interestingly, the
company is not
sourcing camelback
from Tolins in the
UAE but prefers to
bring it from its
Cochin based unit,
where Tolins
manufactures under the L&P brand. The Kerala plant also supplies the tread rubber for the precure process besides all raw material requirements. The Indian plant ships 40 tons of tread rubber each month, equal to two containers of rubber. Despite all the challenges in the
UAE market, Al Jazeera is keen on producing more tyres by the hot process if pending payments are recovered from the market. “We are ready to increase production if customer start paying on time as there is a growing tendency among customers for extending the 90
days credit to one year.”
Al Jazeera is installed with 16 presses for the hot process and two 12 and 3-tyre autoclaves for the precure version
Al Jazeera’s factory in Ras al Khaimah