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UKRAINE
Marangoni provides the equipment at Yashina
Quality is the main aim here
Hard Times in Ukraine
European Union, earn less money, and so they opt for cheaper solutions, and refrain from long-term planning.
“And for some time already, we have a situation, when there is a lack of good highways. There are some, but there are few of them. For this reason, the wear of the casings is rather strong. It is important to understand that a bad road means not just pits and bumps, that also means that the driver has to push on the brake pedal more often and things like that,” Grishenko said.
But the need to spare money is still the prevailing factor, and it impacts the transport industry as a whole, Grishenko stressed. For this reason, most vehicles on the roads are only matching Euro-2 and Euro-3 ecological standards. “Not ever y transport company could afford trucks with advanced ecological class, and it is absurd to purchase trucks on lease in the current market conditions, and at the interest rate of 11%,” Grishenko said. On the other hand, in the transport industr y in Ukraine there is no prejudice against retreaded tyres, although it is very widespread in neighbouring countries, including in Russia,
are flying somewhere on a plane there is a high chance that you are on an aircraft with retreaded tyres,” Grishenko said.
For most clients it becomes obvious that if retreaded tyres could be fit for aircraft they could be also safely used on trucks without any issues. However, in rare cases when this argument doesn’t work, Grishenko said he could offer potential customers with retreaded tyres to conduct some performance tests.
“We shake hands and agree that if the tyres would serve for as long as they are designed, then we would sign a comprehensive agreement for the entire fleet. This strategy proved itself”, Grishenko said. “However, in every particular case it depends on decision-makers, and more specifically, what they want to achieve, operational effectiveness, or perhaps something else”.
In general, there are around 10 retreading plants in Ukraine. At one time there were nearly 20 plants, but a large number of them stopped operation during recent years, Grishenko said. All retreading plants in Ukraine work with truck tyres only. There are no passenger tyre retreaders
A few years ago, there were around 15 retreading plants in operation in Ukraine. As of now there are only 10 companies left. At least 3 companies are selling their equipment right now, but it is hard to find buyers on the domestic market, since it’s been several years since the last retreading plant was commissioned in Ukraine. Nevertheless, there are hopes that things could get better in the future.
Despite the general downward trend in the industry, there are still companies that have managed to maintain a sustainable operation, and the Dnepropetrovsk-based retreading plant Yashina is among them. The company was founded in 2001, long before the problems the industry is experiencing at the moment. According to Alexey Grishenko, director of Yashina, the idea to open the plant came accidentally.
“We were running some business in the new tyre segment. One man advised us to have a close look at the possibility of opening a retreading plant. We found three equipment suppliers, sent them requests in paper letters, because there were no emails at that time, conducted some negotiations and decided on moving further with Marangoni,” Grishenko said.
Yashina is one of the biggest retreading companies in Ukraine. The designed production capacity at one-shift operation is 10,000 tyres per year. In theory, there is a possibility to increase that figure to 15,000 tyres per year or even further, but this depends upon demand.
“The other challenge is casings.
In our operations we are using only 10% of locally-sourced casings, while the rest are imported from the European Union, primarily from Germany and the Netherlands. For instance, in Russia things are a little bit different, as the share of local casings could reach 30% or even 40%, but in our country, it goes like this,” Grishenko added. Over the past 18 years, the maximal production performance achieved by Yashina was 9,000 tyres per year. As of today, this figure is closer to 5,000 or 6,000 tyres.
The dependence on imported casings not only limits the possible production performance, but also introduces certain risks from the point of view of currency fluctuations. Over the past several years, almost all currencies on the post-Soviet space have been experiencing certain turbulence and the Hryvnia is not an exception.
“In addition to casings, we are importing the entire range of raw materials. Even those that we source on the domestic market are imported to Ukraine. The only things that have no dependence on import are labour and electricity,” Grishenko said.
Common obstacles
There are two main reasons why there is a lack of casings with appropriate quality on the domestic market, Grishenko believes. The first one is the economy of the transport companies and the second is the conditions of the highways and regional roads in the countr y. These days, transport companies, including those operating in the
Belarus and Kazakhstan. At least in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast things in this area are way better than they used to be. Grishenko recalled that this problem actually existed at the time when the company began operation, over the years the majority of clients became better educated. “So, when it comes to negotiations with potential customers that have any doubts in regard to retreaded tyres I always tell them that aircraft tyres could be retreaded up to 10 times. This means that when you
or OTR tyre retreaders. Some time ago, an experimental project in the area of passenger tyre retreading was launched in Cherkassy Oblast of Ukraine, but it didn’t last for long, Grishenko recalled.
It happened that some plants have been closed because of the political
turbulence and territorial issues that have been taking place in the country
during the last five years. “Competition in the industry exists. Our company retreads up
42 Retreading Business