Continental expands portfolio

This comes as estimates reveal that over the next 12 years, global harbour business will double capacity with a steady growth of 7% per year.

Dr Michael Andreas Maertens, managing director, Continental CST, told Port Strategy: “The new range was developed to meet customer needs. There is more pressure to ship more containers so container volume is growing and vessels are getting bigger and bigger, so there is more productivity.”

The new portfolio includes customised tyres for all vehicle types operating in ports, including straddle carriers, reach stackers, rubber tyre gantry cranes, terminal tractors and trailors and heavy duty forklifts.

These new tyres have been based on Continental’s V.ply technolgoy, which combines cross-ply and radial-ply design to give optimal rolling resistance. The company’s V.ply tyres feature up to 20 layers of cross-ply fiber woven and arranged at specially designed angles.

Continental CST says V.ply allows the production of sidewalls three times thicker than those used in radial tyres and enables high payloads, even on heavy vehicles that need to reach high stacks, turn on the spot and perform frequent directional changes.

Dr Maertens added: “With our new portfolio we offer our customers in the harbour business a complete solution that increases reliability and safety. At the same time it helps to keep operating costs down and to optimise the environmental performance of their fleets.”

The new portfolio is part of the company’s new business strategy which sees it extend its product range and customer service portfolio to the industrial material handling, OTR material handling and underground mining sectors.

In addition, the company aims to extend its position in Europe and gain ground in other regions outside the established markets, including Asia, Africa and the BRIC states (Brazil, Russia, India and China).