Michelin hosts opening ceremony for its newest manufacturing facility in South Carolina.
Michelin North America hosted an event Thursday to mark the opening of its newest manufacturing facility in South Carolina.
Michelin executives and employees were joined by dozens of dignitaries from across the state to celebrate the milestone 17 months after breaking ground on the Anderson County facility, which will produce large tires for earthmoving equipment.
The project completion is the fastest greenfield construction in Michelin’s history and enables the company to begin production of commercially available tires in January 2014 for sale in mid-2014.
The tiremaker announced a $750 million investment in April 2012 to construct the 800,000-square-foot facility and expand its existing earthmover manufacturing plant in Lexington, S.C.
The new facility is Michelin’s 19th plant in North America and ninth in the state of South Carolina. It will produce large earthmover tires – which can stand up to 13-feet-tall and weigh up to 5.5 tons – for more than 1,300 mining operations around the world. Roughly 80% of the tires manufactured at the facility will be exported, most of it through the Port of Charleston.
The new earthmover tire plant is adjacent to Michelin’s existing rubber processing plant in Starr, S.C., and is the third Michelin plant in Anderson County. The company also operates a 2.5 million square foot rubber processing plant, the largest in the world, in Sandy Springs.
In addition to the Lexington and Anderson County plants, Michelin produces earthmover tires in Waterville, Canada; Campo Grande, Brazil; Le Puy-en-Velay and Montceau, France; Vitoria, Spain and Zalau, Romania.
