Bridgestone to expand Japan OTR plant -- again

ERJ staff report (TB)

Tokyo -- Bridgestone Corp. has green-lighted a third-phase expansion of its OTR tyre plant in Kitakyushu, Japan, committing $239 million through January 2013 to boost capacity 62 percent.

The project will raise annual capacity at the two-year-old plant to 130 metric tons of rubber consumption a day and the investment sum since 2007 to $956 million.

The latest investment includes an undisclosed amount to expand steel cord capacity at its Saga, Japan, plant, which supplies the Kitakyushi plant. This is on top of $30 million Bridgestone invested there three years ago.

The Kitakyushi plant, located in Fukuoku Province on Japan's Kyushu Island, is dedicated to giant OTR tyres. The new plant was built on land adjacent to the firm's 40-year-old Shimonoseki, Japan, OTR tyre factory. Bridgestone also makes smaller OTR tyres at a plant in Hofu, Japan.

Bridgestone is projecting a 40-percent jump in demand from 2009 to 2015 for giant OTR tyres like those built at the plant.

Bridgestone opened the plant in 2009 and began work on a $310 million expansion to add 50 metric tons of annual capacity in April 2010. Employment at the plant reached 253 earlier this year.

The company did not quantify the size of the expansion at the Saga plant, were capacity is listed as 240 tons per day.

Press release from Bridgestone