Yokohama Rubber says it is to invest in additional production capacity at its Visakhapatnam plant now under construction in India, in order to further expand the production volumes of Yokohama Off-Highway Tires (YOHT).
An additional investment of US$171m will increase the new plant’s daily production capacity from the originally planned 55 tons (rubber weight) in the first stage of operations, scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2023, to 123 tons in the second stage, scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2024.
Yokohama Rubber consolidated its OHT business in January with that of the Alliance Tire Group (ATG), a Yokohama Group company specializing in OHT tires, to create an integrated global OHT business under the name of YOHT. This business currently has two tire plants in India—the Dahej Plant in the state of Gujarat and the Tirunelveli Plant in Tamil Nadu. The plants produce three of the group’s core off-highway tire brands, Alliance, Galaxy and Primex, which are used on agricultural, construction, industrial and forestry machinery.
With global demand expanding, Yokohama Rubber recently expanded capacity at the Dahej plant and began the construction of the new Visakhapatnam plant in the third quarter of 2020. It has now decided to further expand capacity at the new plant to meet the continually growing demand for OHT.
The Visakhapatnam Plant is being built on a 390,000m2 site, which includes a recently acquired additional 70,000m2 . The site has a room for further capacity expansion in the future.
