In December 1981, martial law was imposed in Poland, which further aggravated the unfavorable economic situation. Changes occurred after 1989, when ownership transformation and privatization of state assets began in Poland. But the changes were not beneficial to everyone - some state-owned enterprises declared bankruptcy, or were divided into smaller companies that fared differently in the new market reality.
On the other hand, a number of world-renowned companies have started operations in Poland, including Hutchinson, Metzeler, Treleborg, Cooper Standard, Reka Rubber, and Tokai Tubber Industries. Since 1995, the strategic investor in Debica Tire Company S.A. has been the American corporation The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, and the majority shareholder of Stomil Olsztyn is the French corporation Michelin.
The world's largest manufacturer of rubber products and tires, Bridgestone Corporation, has 4 production plants in Poland. Two of them, located in Poznań and Stargard, produce tires for passenger and 4x4 vehicles as well as trucks and buses, the other 2 - in Zarow and Wolsztyn - produce air suspension components.
Stomil Poznan, part of the Polish Armaments Group, offers tires for aircraft, agricultural vehicles, and tires for specialized trucks, mining machinery and earthmoving equipment.
Also worth mentioning is the Kabat company from Budzyn. It is a Polish manufacturer of agricultural tires and solid tires for forklifts, inner tubes, protectors, rubber profiles, rubber compounds and a wide range of technical rubber products. From a small handicraft plant founded in 1983 has grown a company that exports its products to 80 countries around the world.
In 2020, 990,000 tons of rubber products were produced in Poland, including 59,443,000 units of various types of tires and 43,500 tons of belts or conveyor belts.
The above statistics do not include retreaded tires.... and in Poland truck tires are retreaded.
The leader in Central and Eastern Europe in the manufacture of tire retreading materials is Geyer&Hosaja Ltd. The company is also engaged in the production of automobile floor mats, rubber compounds, retreaded tires and retreading materials, granules, road safety components.
The largest consumption of rubbers is associated with the production of tires, and another branch of the industry with high demand for these raw materials is the production of conveyor belts. Among conveyor belt manufacturers, mention should be made of Sempertrans Belchatow and Fabryka Taśm Transportowych Wolbrom S.A., which offer products for the most demanding applications in the mining, cement and steel industries.
Tele-Fonika of Krakow, among others, supplies rubber-insulated cables to customers around the world (mainly mines, industrial plants, wind and solar power plants).
Bydgoskie Zakłady Przemysłu Gumowego Stomil S.A. is an enterprise with a century-long tradition, which specializes in the production of hydraulic and industrial hoses and other rubber articles. Suction and discharge rubber hoses are also manufactured by Wolbrom-based Fagumit.
Sanok Rubber Company S.A. is a company with more than 90 years of tradition, a European leader in the production of rubber products, rubber-metal products and combinations of rubber with other plastics. A manufacturer of rubber compounds with a wide range of products for the automotive, construction (with particular emphasis on gaskets for carpentry), agriculture, pharmaceuticals and household appliances.
According to data published by statista.com, in 2020 the Polish rubber industry included nearly 940 companies, so it is impossible to list them all here. It should be mentioned that today the rubber industry is not only the processing of classic rubbers, but a much wider range of raw materials including liquid silicone rubbers (LSR) or thermoplastic elastomers (TPE). We should not forget Topsil Global, which is a leader in the Polish silicone and TPE processing market, exporting products to 40 countries around the world. Another manufacturer of rubber and silicone products is the family-owned company Larkis from Dobczyce, which offers extruded silicone products, mold details and sealing compounds for various industries.
The production of rubber products cannot do without the relevant raw materials - rubbers and a whole range of chemicals. The Synthos S.A. Group manufactures and supplies the market with styrene-butadiene, nitrile and butadiene rubbers, as well as styrene-butadiene latexes: concentrated, carboxylated and self-crosslinking. The Konimpex Group, in turn, supplies technical and specialty carbon blacks (pigmented, electroconductive, with reduced aromatic hydrocarbon content) used in the production of rubber products. It also offers synthetic rubbers produced in Asia.
Karol Niciński
