Sumitomo boosting China capacity
KOBE, Japan-Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. (SRI) plans to quadruple production capacity for passenger tires at its plant in Changshu, China, by year-end 2008 and add capacity for radial truck/bus tires by mid-2006.
Kobe-based Sumitomo Rubber, which controls the Dunlop brand throughout most of Asia, will invest between $86 million and $129 million in the project, the firm said, which will raise car tire capacity to 6,000 metric tons a month from 1,450 metric tons, or about 5,000 tires a day.
SRI opened the plant, which operates as Sumitomo Rubber (Changshu) Co. Ltd., in Jiangsu Province in mid-2004.
Bridgestone building SBR plant
TOKYO-Bridgestone Corp. will spend $100 million over the coming 24 to 30 months to build a synthetic rubber plant in Huizhou, China, primarily to serve its own tire plants in China and Asia.
Bridgestone has formed Bridgestone (Huizhou) Synthetic Rubber Co. Ltd. to operate the plant, which should come on stream in the first half of 2008 with annual production capacity of 50,000 metric tons. Bridgestone will make styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) at the plant using technology from Japan's JSR Corp.
Bridgestone, which already makes synthetic rubber at two plants in the U.S., said the decision to build a synthetic rubber plant for China and Asia is in line with an expected surge in demand in those areas.