SHANGHAI, China — Chinese tire maker Sailun Group Co. Ltd. has disclosed plans to build a passenger, truck and OTR tire plant in Shandong Province in a five-phase project valued at $2.25 billion.
The project is expected to take up to five years to complete, Sailun said in a recent filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Once fully on-stream, the factory will be rated at 20 million high-performance passenger tires, 10 million all-steel radial truck tires and 150,000 metric tons of OTR tires.
Sailun, the world's No. 17 tire maker based on 2020 sales of $2 billion, said it expects to break ground in the fourth quarter on the project, located in Dongjiakou, a coastal port town about 25 miles south of Qingdao.
The plant will be Sailun's third in China and fifth overall. Its other plants in China are in Shenyang/Liaoning and Dongying/Shandong; its overseas plants are in Phuoc Dong, Vietnam, and Svay Rieng, Cambodia, the latter of which opened in November 2021.
The plant's OTR tire capacity will be based on what Sailun called the first industrial internet "Eco-Rubber Cloud."
The system, it said, will use a "intelligent" production and testing equipment to manufacture high-performance green tire products designed to meet the needs of domestic and foreign markets more effectively.
The investment still needs to go to the relevant government departments for project filing, environmental impact assessment approval, and construction planning approval, according to Sailun.
Word of this capacity expansion comes just weeks after Sailun Tire Americas (STA) — Sailun Group's North American operations subsidiary — disclosed plans to establish a research and development center in Chattanooga, Tenn., designed to be a "hub of innovation" for original equipment and replacement tires across a number of sectors including cars, CUVs, SUVs, light trucks, trucks and buses, and electric vehicles.
Brampton, Ontario-based STA oversees importation of the brand in North America. TBC Corp. is the brand's designated distributor in the U.S.
