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INDIA
conventional as well as precure treads, but with the market slowdown, the site currently produces only 60 tons each month. “We are the sole supplier of conventional treads to major Indian companies like Sundaram Industries, Elgi, Balakrishna & Bro from the year 2000 onwards,” he said.
Besides East Africa, Crescent is also making efforts to enter the Central and South American market and has already sent product samples to customers in Colombia and Ecuador. “These are good markets for OTR patterns, and there is an opportunity to market precure as well as conventional rubber in these countries.” The company is also pondering over exhibiting in the Latin American and Caribbean Tyre Expo in November.
Interestingly, Crescent is also in the process of finalising tread shipments to a new OTR site in the Syrian port city of Latakia. The plant will operate on new Italmatic equipment already installed. The shipment of OTR sizes 29.5 R25 & 29.5 R29 was
delayed due to lockdown enforced to curb Covid-19 in India and Syria. Latakia is principal port city and known as manufacturing centre for surrounding agricultural towns and villages.
“We are supplying the Syrian site with hot rubber in cutting and chipping resistant tread in higher tensile and tear strength for usage in the mines and construction areas,” Abdusamad informed. Now Crescent is also focusing on utilising the whole plant capacity of 400 tons. “Ideally, the target is to export 150-200 tons tread rubber with the remaining 200 tons supplied in the domestic market.”
Meanwhile, Crescent has also ordered a new precure customised press, the cylinder of the press being made from a single shaft (with no joints) to generate higher pressure and heat during tread production, in order to produce lighter treads with higher mileage. The new press will be installed by the end of 2020.
Kusumgar Introduces Fabric-based Peel & Ply PCTR Technology
Mumbai-headquartered Kusumgar Corporates is regarded as a leader in the highly niche technical and specialised textiles sphere, manufacturing a comprehensive range of textiles for a wide spectrum of applications. The company has pioneered PCTR manufacturing with peel & ply fabric in India.
This fabric-based PCTR technology is used to manufacture the cloth which can be applied at the back of the tread strip in the press during the manufacture of precured treads, and it provides the required roughness / impression on the PCTR strip which otherwise would be imparted during the post-cure buffing process. Via this manufacturing route precured strips need no buffing on the back surface as the required
roughness has already been imparted by the cloth. This reduces the cycle time and also leads to less wastage, 1-1.5 % of rubber waste at buffing can be avoided.
Some key Indian tread brands based in South India are already clients of Kusumgar Corporates.