The construction of this new plant marks Apollo’s entry into the OTR tyre segment. Presiding over the auspicious occasion at Limda, in India’s Gujarat state, was company chairman and managing director Onkar Kanwar.
The OTR facility will be ready for production within the next 15 months and will have an initial capacity of 10 tonnes per day, to be increased to 60 tonnes a day over a three-year period. Sizes produced at the Limda plant will start at 25-inch and diameters up to 57-inch are planned. The first phase of development will require an investment of about Rs 1 billion (£12.7 million), and this money will go toward establishing facilities primarily for the production of cross-ply OTR tyres. Additional investments will be made for radial production.
“Buoyancy in the mining and construction industries globally has led to a demand-supply gap in OTR tyres, including in India,” said Kanwar. “We will begin production with the conventional cross-ply tyres which are used in India. Over the next two-odd years, we will manufacture radial OTR tyres, which are currently not produced in India. Various earthmover equipment manufacturers have shown eagerness to get into agreements with us that allow them exclusive access to our OTR production.”
Radial OTR tyres are currently not manufactured in India and are imported primarily in the size range of 50 inches and higher, for vehicles used in the mining sector. (Tyres & Accessories/Staffordshire, U.K.)
