Goodyear Tire & Rubber builds Brazilian tire plant

Rubber World, Dec, 1997

Goodyear Tire & Rubber will build a state-of-the-art tire plant in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The Goodyear tire plant, to be located near a new General Motors automotive assembly complex being built in the city of Gravatai, in the southern Brazilian state, will produce passenger tires for the automaker, as well as replacement tire customers. Goodyear will provide General Motors do Brasil with mounted-and-balanced tire assemblies on a just-in-time basis.

The Dutch chemicals and materials group DSM, Heerlen, the Netherlands, and Rubbermaid, Wooster, OH, have reached an agreement in principle on the acquisition by Rubbermaid of DSM's Curver Group (plastic consumer products), located in Goirle, the Netherlands. DSM and Rubbermaid expect to be able to finalize their talks successfully in the near future and close the transaction by December 31.

Vredestein Rubber Recycling BV, a Maastricht-based subsidiary of Vredestein NV, is negotiating the acquisition of a major participation in Jakobs Rubber Recycling NV of Lommel in Belgium. Participation in Jakobs will enable Vredestein to extend its product range in the area of whole tire rubber crumbs and also offer upstream integration in their supply chain.

Akron Rubber Development Laboratory, Akron, OH, has constructed a high temperature fuel aging facility for accelerated aging studies of rubber and plastics subjected to various automotive and truck fuels and fuel additive packages.

Bayer AG's U.S. subsidiary is establishing a film insert molding research and development facility at its Pittsburgh, PA headquarters.

Degussa AG of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is participating in a research joint venture for the production of rubber filler systems. The company intends to test new manufacturing methods for the production of premixes and evaluate their practical capability in a plant, to be operated jointly with Pulverkautschuk Union GmbH as a partner and located at PKU's site in Marl, Germany.

Bridgestone/Firestone has reached an agreement to purchase the commercial and off-the-road divisions of Fletcher's Cobre Tire. Terms of the agreement, which is scheduled for completion at year-end, were not disclosed.

Chemetall GmbH, a member of Germany's Dynamit Nobel Group, will construct its first Asian facility for the production of alkylithiums, especially butylithium. The plant is expected to be on stream by the first quarter of 1999, and will be located in Chan Hua Coastal Industries Park in central Taiwan. Chemetall Taiwan Co., Ltd. of Taipei, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chemetall GmbH, will be responsible for the production facility after its completion. By the third quarter of 1998, Chemetall GmbH will also have completed the expansion of its existing butylithium plant in Germany.

To accommodate a long-term supply agreement with Ford Motor for torsional vibration dampers, Freudenberg-NOK is investing $13 million in equipment and technical infrastructure at its Ligonier, IN facility. To accommodate the TVD business, which will create about 80 jobs and require approximately 40,000 square feet of additional space, Freudenberg-NOK decided to expand its 125,000 square foot Ligonier facility.

Selcom of Southfield, MI announced that its parent company, Selcom AB of Partille, Sweden, has opened a regional sales company in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to provide sales and service support to area customers and distributors for its non-contact industrial laser-based dimensional gauging sensors in the East Asian and Pacific area markets.

Rhone-Poulenc's Tire and Rubber Chemicals Enterprise announced its intention to increase by 40% its European precipitated silica production capacity, raising output from 70,000 tons to 100,000 tons per year. This capacity expansion will be achieved by the construction of a production line in Europe.

InjecTec, a Chicago area custom-molded rubber manufacturer and specialty spray coater has closed deals on one 250-ton Cincinnati Millacron and one 400-ton HPM plastic injection press. They will add over a million dollars worth of new equipment to the current shop facility of 180-400 ton transfer/compression molding rubber presses and a two-roll mill. Plans to automate all existing presses are also underway.

Equate Petrochemical completed construction and startup of commercial operations of its world-scale petrochemical complex at the Shuaiba industrial area of Kuwait. The $2 billion facility will produce and market polyethylene and ethylene glycol primarily to the Far East, Middle East and Europe. Equate is a joint venture of Union Carbide and Kuwaiti government-owned Petrochemical Industries.

Montell Polyolefins' joint venture company Pollbrasil announced plans to construct a world-scale polypropylene plant in the Petrochemical Pole of Capuava, Maua, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Representing an investment of $150 million, the 240,000 metric ton per year facility will consolidate Pollbrasil's position as the largest polypropylene manufacturer in Latin America. Pollbrasil is jointly controlled by Suzano, a Brazilian group, and Montell.