Tire reuse plan to improve access threshold

After the "Tire Industry Policy" put forward principled opinions, industrial policies such as industrial conditions for tire retreading and comprehensive utilization will be introduced next year. By then, the old tire retreading and waste tire resources comprehensive utilization enterprises will face integration on October 11. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Tire Industry Policy." In addition to proposing measures such as “comparing 100% of the radial tires of passenger tires by 2015” and other measures such as structural adjustment of tire products and significantly raising the threshold of the tire industry, it also proposed for the first time in industrial policy “recycling and utilization of used tires”. Establish and improve the management system for the recycling of used tires and other measures to standardize its market system.

"The introduction of this policy is timely and necessary," Zhu Jun, president of the China Tire Renovation and Recycling Association, told China Investment. He also disclosed that after the "Tire Industry Policy" was issued, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments also formulated corresponding entry barriers and industry standards, and proposed more specific measures in terms of production scale, environmental protection technology requirements, etc., to gradually improve the renovation and waste of used tires. Tire comprehensive utilization threshold.

"The policy will be introduced at the earliest of next year," Cheng Yuan, executive vice president of the China Tire Recycling Association and a professor at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology who once participated in the preparation of tire industry policies, confirmed this news to China Investment.

The "timely rain" during the dilemma

China has become the world’s largest rubber consumer nation for seven consecutive years. According to the statistics of the World Rubber Research Organization, the consumption of rubber in 2008 was 5.995 million tons, accounting for 27% of the world's total consumption. At the same time, as a country with very scarce rubber resources, more than 70% of domestic natural rubber and more than 40% of synthetic rubber rely on imports. "70% of the import dependence is an internationally recognized warning line." Cheng Yuan told reporters that if it does not make comprehensive use of existing rubber products, rubber is likely to become the second "iron ore" in the future.

As an important strategic material of a country, rubber is the main raw material for tire production, and its price is increasing year by year. Data show that in October, the price of Shanghai rubber futures has exceeded 30,000 yuan / ton, the highest is close to 32,000 yuan / ton. The high prices of raw materials directly led to a drop in the profits of tire manufacturing companies. From January to August this year, gross profit margins of 45 domestic tire companies decreased by an average of 1.12 percentage points.

On the one hand, the soaring prices of raw materials and the rising production costs of enterprises, on the other hand, are the strong demand for tire products brought by automobile production, and there is a huge market and profit margin. Production is faced with high costs. Without production, the opportunity period will be lost. Tire manufacturers will fall into a “dilemma” situation.

"The New Deal proposes to guide and encourage tire manufacturers to develop a circular economy, and the timing may be justified," Zhu Jun said.

With the supply of raw materials being tight and the cost of new tires increasing, many manufacturers have turned their attention to the field of tire retreading and recycling. On the one hand, old tires are retreaded to make new tires; on the other hand, disassemblable scrap tires that cannot be retreaded can be made into reclaimed rubber powder that can be mixed with natural rubber. Both approaches can ease the dependence on rubber raw materials. Waste tires can also be converted into renewable resources by thermal cracking.

According to Michelin, a world-renowned tire manufacturer, a tire can be retreaded several times under conditions of good use and maintenance, which can at least extend the overall life of the tire by 1-2 times. Every refurbishment, the life of retreaded tires can reach 60% of new tires and even longer than new tires. 70% of aircraft tires have been refurbished and refurbished up to 7 times. Retreading tires brings a lot of cost savings, reducing the cost of new tires by 45%-50%, and increasing the new tire mileage by 90%.

Tire retreading and reuse can not only reduce resource consumption, but also reduce the environmental impact of used tires. The production of a new truck tire consumes an average of 84 liters of oil, while the refurbishment of a truck tire consumes an average of 28 liters of oil. If China can improve the tire renewal rate to 10%, taking ordinary truck tires as an example, it can save 468,000 tons of oil, 47,250 tons of steel, 243,000 tons of rubber. Through waste tire “thermal cracking” technology, waste tires can be broken down into 45% fuel oil, 35% carbon black, 10% steel wire, and 10% flammable gas.

In recent years, driven by the promotion of recycling economy and the comprehensive utilization of resources, the scale of tire retreading and recycling industries is also expanding. "Production-use-refurbishment-reuse-disuse-disassembly-disintegration" not only becomes the most ideal resource utilization mode for the rubber industry to "eat and squeeze" but also has extremely high economic value. And the favor of local governments. At present, except for the Tibet Autonomous Region, all provinces and cities have tire retreading and recycling manufacturing companies. In Huangzhou District, Huanggang City, Hubei Province, the province also established the first comprehensive recycling base for waste rubber recycling resources. The processed retreaded tire products have been widely used, and the recycled rubber and rubber powder produced have become the third rubber resource in addition to domestic production and import.

According to incomplete statistics from the China Tire Renovation and Recycling Association, in 2009, there were 13 million tires retreaded in China, 2.7 million tons of reclaimed rubber, 200,000 tons of rubber powder, and 50,000 tons of thermal cracking. The industry has maintained steady growth. The situation.

Refurbishment of radial tire or welcome investment climax Huacun Securities researcher Gao Li believes that with the implementation of the tire industry policy, the tire refurbishment market has a brighter future.

However, compared with the average 15% renovation rate in developed countries, the proportion of old tires that can be refurbished in China is currently less than 7%. In addition, due to improper use, frequent overloading and other reasons, retreadable tires account for 4% of the total amount of used tires, which is far lower than the average level of 45% in developed countries.

With the stagnation of tire retreading in developed countries such as the United States, European Union and Japan, combined with high profit margins in the domestic refurbishment market and high growth market space, tire retreading in countries such as the United States, the European Union, Japan and Southeast Asia, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. Manufacturers and distributors all pay attention to China and have come to China to find business opportunities and seek development.

“Asia, especially the Chinese market, has become one of the important strategies for the development of the Michelin business,” said Xia Maoting, senior vice president of Michelin (China) Investment Co., Ltd. According to a survey conducted by the Michelin company, in the period from 2006 to 2010, the global new tire (car tire) increased by approximately 10% annually, and the annual growth rate of recarriage was approximately 20%.

According to the research of China Business Intelligence Network, from January to November 2009, there were 74 tire retreading enterprises above designated size, achieving a total sales revenue of 3.21 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 43.36%. Between 2005 and 2009, the annual average compound annual growth rate of sales revenue of China's tire retreading industry was as high as 30.4%. Analysts at the agency expect that China's tire refurbishment production will increase at an average annual rate of more than 10% between 2010 and 2015. By 2015, China's tire refurbishment production will be close to approximately 25 million.

Guo Guodong, a strategist at Everbright Securities, said that in recent years, the tire retreading industry has received more policy encouragement and higher corporate participation. This industry is most likely to become a breakthrough in remanufacturing.

Zhu Jun said that at present, tire retreading companies have expanded from the simple refurbishment of automobile tires in the past to the renovation of mine engineering tires and aviation tires, and the renovation potential of special tires is even greater.

Compared with bias tires, due to the use of specifications, radial tires are in better condition and are more suitable for retreading. The number of retreads can reach 3-5 times. During the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, the use of radial tires for passenger vehicles is widely promoted. For tire retreading companies, experts recommend that attention should be paid to the development of radial tire renewal technology, and presulfiding cold-turning radial tires, etc., will become the mainstream technology for tire retreading. .

With the inclusion of new tire retreadability capabilities as a mandatory technical standard and user awareness of increased maintenance, the resources of retreadable old tires will increase significantly. “The tire retreading industry has entered a period of rapid development and will be the first round of investment boom in retreading radial tires in the next few years,” Cheng Yuan predicted.

The recycling system needs to be improved. “There are also many problems in the industry,” Zhu Jun said. Due to imperfect regulations, industry standards, and industrial policies, the industry has experienced disorderly development and business operations. In particular, the recycling system is not perfect, resulting in some waste tires can not be fully entered into the formal processing enterprises after recycling, and provide raw materials for the production of crude oil and small recycled rubber.

“The technical requirements for oil refining in the field are not high enough, and three or five farmers can work together”. Zhu Jun is very worried about the mixed situation of “three small” enterprises and regular enterprises such as small reclaimed rubber, small rubber powder factories, and small oil refineries in the industry. Driven by profits, small enterprises that use waste tires to carry out oil refinery operations have been prohibited for many times. Illegal processing has not only impacted on regular enterprises, but also caused secondary pollution to the environment.

There is a serious shortage of waste tire resources in the country, and prices have risen rapidly. Some companies are not recovering, so they are inevitably playing the role of importing waste tires. Each year, hundreds of thousands of tons of waste tires are smuggled into China. In order to avoid the formation of new sources of pollution from imported tires, some experts suggest that they be included in the ban on imports.

The main reason for the controversy was that the government regulators felt that the boundary between "waste" and "old" tires was not well-distributed. According to the WTO rules, old tyres can be imported, and used tyres are listed as prohibited imports.

Although the "Tire Industry Policy" specifically clarified that "the source of waste tires should be based on the domestic", but "in the case of the recovery system is not completely established and completed, hard plugging imports, it is better to ease about," Zhu Jun told reporters. Such as the expansion of the scope of comprehensive use of waste tire pilot companies, allowing them to pass through formal channels, after approval, import of used tires. For scrap tires, you can take the method of cutting into pieces to clarify its identity.

In September this year, Zhengzhou Wantong Benda's retreaded tire factory was completed. This is already the 11th retreaded tire factory that Bridgestone China has joined.

After acquiring well-known tire retreading company Bandag, the Japanese tire manufacturer Bridgestone Group also began to actively expand tire retreading solutions for commercial vehicle tire users worldwide. According to the latest strategic plan, in the next five years, Bridgestone’s renewal strategic partners in China will achieve a growth of about 3 times, while the sales of retreaded tires is expected to increase by a factor of 10 or so.

Drawing on the practice of international tire companies, the development of old tire retreading and waste tire recycling technologies by production companies and participation in the construction of used tire recycling systems is an important measure to increase the tire renewal rate and the reutilization of used tires.

Compared with the key layout of foreign tire manufacturing enterprises that opened the retreaded tire market in China earlier, domestic tire manufacturers have not fallen behind. Fengshen, Shuangqian, and Jiatong have already entered the refurbishment market.

Taking triangular tires as an example, 3.5 million radial tires are produced each year, which is calculated based on 50% of domestic sales and 65 kilograms of waste steel radial tires. Only products sold by the group will generate 100,000 tons or more of used tires each year. After the refurbishment of its subsidiary Huada Tire Co., Ltd., the tire price is only 1/3 of the new tires. According to the renovation, the minimum mileage of new tires is calculated to be 70%. Tire retreading can reduce tire costs by 26%. At present, Delta Huada Tire Renovation Co., Ltd. has formed a production capacity of 500,000 refurbished steel radial tires and 1 million retreaded tires each year, with an additional sales income of 300 million yuan, forming a tire production-sales-carcass recycling - Virtuous cycle development model for tire retreading.

In addition to tire manufacturing companies establishing their own recycling and utilization systems, some tire retreaders can actively look for business opportunities. In the well-developed areas such as the urban-rural fringe, the company can use the existing large-scale backbone enterprises as a leader, and through the integration of resources, establish a number of different types of waste tire recycling centers, comprehensive utilization and equipment manufacturing parks to realize the scale of various types of enterprises. development of.

Although the "Tire Industry Policy," proposed "to guide and encourage tire manufacturers to develop a recycling economy," "lead tire manufacturers and marketing companies, large transport groups, waste tires comprehensive utilization of enterprise cooperation, the establishment of old renovation, trade-in and other tire marketing The model, but Zhu Jun believes that in addition to "guidance", more specific policy measures are needed to encourage and support it.

The reporter learned that at present, the industrial policies of the two countries, "Entry for Automobile Tyre Retreading Industry" and "Admission Requirements for Comprehensive Utilization of Waste Tire" prepared by China Tire Renovation and Recycling Association, have been reported to related departments, and the association plans to conduct 5 The relevant industry standard drafting. In addition to proposing policies and measures to improve the recycling system, it will also focus on improving the industry's access threshold from aspects such as the size of the company and the adoption of energy-saving and environmental protection technologies. "This impact on the entire industry will be "moderate"," Zhu Jun said.

After establishing a comprehensive recycling system and raising environmental protection standards, the tire retreading market will be more standardized and waste tire resources will be fully re-used.