YANTAI, China — Linglong Group Co. Ltd. has approved funding for a passenger and truck/bus tire plant in Hefei, Anhui Province, that will become the company's seventh tire factory in China when it starts production.
The new plant, for which Linglong has budgeted $800 million, is projected to have capacities of 12 million passenger and 2.6 million truck/bus tires a year when it reaches full capacity by 2027, Linglong said.
Groundbreaking on the 8.6 million sq.-ft. factory is expected before year-end.
The announcement is the latest in company's "7+5" business strategy announced earlier this year, which calls for seven plants in China and five others globally by 2030.
Linglong has four factories in China now — in Zhaoyuan, Dezhou, Liuzhou and Jingmen — with a fifth under construction in Changchun City, in northeastern China, and a sixth announced just a few weeks ago.
That project, for 15.2 million radial truck tires year in the central China province of Shaanxi, is valued at $945 million and will also include capacity for 500,000 retreaded tires, Linglong said.
The company also operates an overseas plant in Thailand and is building a car, truck and OTR tire plant in Serbia, for which it budgeted nearly $1 billion.
Linglong said the passenger tire capacity will include 4 million units of "self-healing tires, 4 million units of "new-energy vehicle" tires and 4 million ultra-high-performance radial tires.
On the truck/bus tire side, 1 million units of capacity will be "self-healing" products, 1 million units will be designated "smart" tires and 600,000 units will be deemed "high-performance" radials, Linglong said.
Linglong plans to build the factory in three phases. Phase One will have a capacity to produce 6 million units of passenger car tires annually and is set for completion by year-end 2023. Phase Two will double the annual car tire capacity to 12 million units and add 1 million units of truck/bus tire capacity, by year-end 2025.
Phase Three will complete the plant's capacity with an additional 1.6 million truck/bus tires per year and will come on stream by year-end 2027.
The project is expected to generate $98 million in net profits on sales of nearly $800 million when in full operation, the company said.
Shandong-based Linglong is considered China's No. 2 tire maker and 12th largest worldwide, according to Tire Business' annual Global Top 75 ranking. Its sales in 2020 were $2.75 billion.
Linglong goes to market with six brands: Atlas, Greenmax, Hubtrac, Infinity, Leao and Linglong.
Earlier this year Linglong announced plans to launch its Hubtrac-brand commercial tires in the U.S., rolling out as many as 140 SKUs covering long-haul, regional, on- and off-road, mining, winter and urban applications.
