Pirelli expands its Russian plant

Russia: The Italian tire multinational, Pirelli & C. S.p.A., has recently announced upgradation of its two manufacturing units in Russia situated in Kirov city and Voronezh city. As per the company, during the period between 2012 to 2015, a mighty sum of more than USD224 million was invested in both the facilities, wherein, the focus was on advancement of manufacturing technology as well as infrastructure of the facility.

Officials at Pirelli, also announced that immediately after the company took over the operations of the Kirov facility in the country along with its domestically based partner, Rostec, a large scale modernization was deployed in the facility, starting in Dec. 2011.

Promptly after the control was taken over Kirov unit, a few months down the line, the company began renovating its Voronezh unit. Besides that, both the plant buildings were almost rebuilt, the production workshops were refurbished, mixing facilities were installed in the plants and Pirelli’s developed technology was implemented in them.

Pirelli stated that the enhancement of the plants has led the company to expand its production capacity of premium tires. Moreover, the Kirov facility, as of Feb 2016, employees around 2,200 members and produces tires of Pirelli and Amtel brands, ranging from 13” to 16”. These tires are also supplied to several OEMs across Russia. On the other hand, the company’s Voronezh facility have 1,023 employees and produces specifically premium passenger car tires of diameter ranging from 16” to 21”. The Voronezh plant along with supplying tires to several car manufacturers in Russia, also export tires to entire Europe, Scandinavia and other CIS nations.

According to a recent report published by TechSci Research, “Russia Tyre Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2020” the country has the second largest automobile market in entire Europe. Increasing urbanization, rising disposable income and low vehicle density were observed to be the major drivers of the Russian automobile industry. Pirelli is one of the dominant players in the tire market of the country. The advancement made to the manufacturing units, by Pirelli, is likely to greet further homologations with OEMs based in Russia.