10 Years of OAO TATNEFT in the Tire Business Print version

02.03.2010

OAO Nizhnekamskshina, a mass tire production factory, is at the stage of completing reconstruction of the mass tire assembly plant. The project is implemented within the framework of developing tire production works for 2008-2010 financed by OAO TATNEFT. It aims at improving the quality and performance characteristics of radial passenger car tires.

As a result, the volume of new products will increase by 960 thousand pieces and will amount to 2.86 million car and light truck tires, which will replace the outdated cross-ply tires.

TATNEFT entered the tire manufacturing business 10 years ago in 2000, when the Company acquired shares of the tire company from the Government of Tatarstan. The total investment of TATNEFT in the development of OAO Nizhnekamskshina amounted to about 30 billion rubles. The first significant project in this program was the production of high-performance radial passenger car tires under the new KAMA-EURO brand.

By the beginning of 2008 the volume of production at OAO Nizhnekamskshina increased by 50% compared to the level of 1999 and reached 12.5 million tires per year. Despite the global crisis the share of the Kama plant production in the total output of domestic tire manufacturers rose to 41%. This happened due to increase in the share of innovative products at OAO Nizhnekamskshina in 2009 by 36% of the total production volume.

A new phase of investing was putting into operation a factory of solid steel cord tires in December 2009. This project could be called an innovative breakthrough at the entire country scale, since such production in the territory of Russia had not been implemented in full volume ever before by any of the domestic tire manufacturers. The issue of state support becomes increasingly urgent at the present stage of development of the tire industry in Russia for domestic producers of high quality import substituting products with protection of Russia's market from importing tires of poor quality often sold at dumping prices. This problem is discussed today at the highest level, and OAO TATNEFT has been actively participating in solving this problem.

One of the Company's priorities in the tire business is environmental responsibility. The Company has implemented a large range of measures in the field of industrial safety and environmental protection over the past decade. Environmental programs of OAO Nizhnekamskshina in recent years have been recognized to be among the best in Russia. The full scale implementation of the environmental management system complies with the international ISO 14001 standards, and victories in the Republican contest "Ecoleader "and in the all-Russia contest "The leader of the environmental activities of Russia" confirm high effectiveness of this work.

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