WALUJ, India—Balkrishna Industries Ltd. (BKT) has begun trial production of off-highway tires at a dedicated facility in Waluj, built to replace an older plant nearby in India's Maharashtra state.
The new plant, built over the past two years at a cost of $56 million, will open with a rated annual capacity of around 30,000 metric tons of medium and small diameter industrial and agricultural tires.
The plant will employ about 500 at full capacity, BKT added.
Located on a 22-acre site in Waluj—an industrial complex/city situated southwest of Aurangabad in west-central India—the new factory replaces BKT's first plant, opened in 1987.
The project focused on the construction of a cutting-edge plant from both a structural and mechanical point of view and on the reorganization of departments and workflows for maximum efficiency.
BKT stressed that the factory was completed on time, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, the company enacted appropriate health-safety measures to ensure the safety of all those working on the project.
When it announced plans in late 2018 for the new plant, BKT noted the existing factory was "size-restricted" and operating at "sub-optimal" levels. It also said the new facility would have its own co-generation power plant and warehousing.
Separately, BKT reported 170 percent growth in earnings, to $44.5 million, on a near doubling in sales volume for the quarter ended June 30, to $255 million. The company did not elaborate on the reasons for the positive gains.
With fiscal 2020-21 tire-related sales of $739.6 million, BKT was ranked 36th on Tire Business' Global Top 75 tire makers' list for 2021.
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