Page 44 - RB-99-2021-4

INDIA
North India’s Largest Retreader to Introduce Fleet Management Service
Mahima Focuses on Achieving Pre-Covid Production Levels
One of the largest retreaders in Northern India, Haryana Cold Retreads Pvt Ltd, which operates retreading facility in Sohna in the state of Haryana, is planning to restructure its business by introducing a fleet management system for fleet owners.
“The objective of restructuring is to improve volumes, operate
improve fleet efficiency by aligning with professionally-run retreading companies and we are keen on filling that space.” The restructuring exercise will also help the company to streamline its operation, use its existing resources in a judicious manner. “The transformation will also help us to assess our strong points and identify
Indian tread rubber makers are now increasingly focusing on maintaining pre-covid19 levels of production as many small to mid-size retread sites have been forced to take a
pause until the
situation
normalises
completely or in
worst case shut
down their sites.
Though no
confirmed
number of
retread site
closures is
available, market
observers believe
that the
prolonged lockdown has hit the smaller operations hard.
The lockdowns have also impacted the output of the Kerala based tread manufacturers.
“The situation is bad as a lot of retread plants wereforced to close down their operation affecting our production also,” said T Hari Balakrishnan, Managing Director, Mahima Rubber Products. “We have capacity to produce about 200 tons of tread rubber each month and used to produce anything between 150-180 tons monthly before Covid but now the lockdown in Kerala has forced us to further cut production with current output levels down to 120-130 tons per month.” Mahima manufactures both conventional and precure tread, supplying tread rubber mainly to retread sites operating in the Southern states of India including Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Tamil Nadu, besides exporting to the African and the Gulf market. “Conventional tread production is more seasonal now as its production is confined to a couple of months in our Thrissur based site. In the peak months of May and June, 70% of the production is of hot rubber, while in the rest of year 90% of production consists of precured tread rubber,” informed Balakrishnan.
“Last year, the state of Kerala emerged as a model state that
has successfully contained the spread of Covid, therefore, the statewide lockdown imposed for about 45 days only coincided with the national lockdown. On
Narender Yadav, Managing Director, Haryana Cold Retreads Pvt Ltd
T Hari Balakrishnan, Managing Director, Mahima Rubber Products
the other hand, this year Kerala is the worst affected state, and the state government was forced to impose lockdown at regular intervals to contain the virus spread, whereas other parts of the country are open,’ he said. Mahima shipped a few containers to Africa in the pre- Covid phase but post-Covid, exports have become completely unviable. “The freight from Cochin Port to Mombasa in Kenya is now four times what it used to be in pre-Covid days. Earlier, the freight was about $600 a container, whereas it is now $2,400,” he said. The export scenario has been further worsened by the container crises the world over.
On the domestic front, it has become extremely difficult for the tread rubber producer to operate smoothly without facing any challenge. The steep hike in raw material prices this year is a major cause of concern directly impacting production levels of tread producers in the country. “When the market started opening up raw material prices skyrocketed, for example rubber sheet which used to be INR 105 per kg is now INR 175 kg, while prices of synthetic rubber tripled to INR 186 per kilo from INR 70 in early 2020. Moreover, the whole industry is facing a shortage of carbon black, prices of which are around INR 103 per kilo compared to INR 65 per kilo before.”
the plant to complete capacity and introduce fleet management in major fleets operating in North India,” said Narender Yadav, Managing Director, Haryana Cold Retreads Pvt Ltd. “We have also appointed a new team, which is under training to market as well as implement fleet- management among large fleets,” he added
The company is also in touch with tyre OEMs in order to establish a complete platform to provide fleets with new tyres, retreads and fleet management services all under one roof.
“We are in the middle of convincing big fleets with more than 200 trucks to join us and assure them of improving the cost per km performance of their operations,” said Yadav. “Surging new tyre prices and rising fuel costs are forcing fleet owners to look for ways to
weaker points in the whole chain of operation,” he said. Haryana Cold Retreads was among the first retreaders in Northern India to set up a dedicated Recamic facility from Michelin, having established a stand-alone state-of-the-art retread unit at the same location in 2014. The main Sohna site, which uses Indag tread rubber, is located around 40 km from Delhi and commenced production in 1992.
Har yana Cold Retread has a large client base among the state-owned transport companies like Har yana Transport Undertaking (HTU) and Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) besides logistics companies like GATI, TCI etc. It procures 10-12 tons of tread rubber from Indag each month.
44 Retreading Business