Bridgestone Corp. is investing 32 billion yen in the expansion of its large OTR plant in Kitakyushu, Japan, and to increase capacity at its OTR steel cord plant in Saga, Japan.
Demand for large OTR tires "has been expanding significantly worldwide in step with increasing global production of mineral resources," say Bridgestone officials. "Moving ahead, demand is expected to remain at a high level."
Bridgestone says it plans to increase production capacity "in a stepwise manner. Expansion work will get underway in the second half of 2008, with production scheduled to begin in the second half of 2010.
"As a result, production capacity is projected to increase by around 50 tons of new rubber a day by the end of 2012, which will be up roughly 20% from the time the current expansion work is complete."
