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principal managers of leading Chilean mining tyre management and service company Bailac – talking to Raimundo Bailac , Deputy General Manager of Bailac Thor , General Manager of Bailac Thor Leopoldo Bailac ; and Alberto Bailac , General Manager of the group company Bailac San Ltda . They talked about its position in the market , and the range of services it provides .
Raimundo Bailac discussed its strength in Chile where it estimates it has an 80 % market share and around 1,500 employees :
“ First of all we are a fourth generation family company – we started our growth
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Raimundo Bailac , Deputy General Manager of
Bailac Thor ( right ), General Manager of
Bailac Thor Leopoldo Bailac ( middle ); and Alberto
Bailac , General Manager of the group company
Bailac San Ltda ( left )
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In most cases large tyres are assessed onsite then sent to Bailac locations for repairs and / or retreading .
Regarding the REP Law , Raimundo Bailac told IM that it is not currently recycling mining tyres and that its focus today is on its proven expertise in retreading . Its retreading services are extensive – Bailac leads this market in Chile with four large retread plants . He told IM : " We are currently the only OTR tyre retreading company in Chile with a valorisation certificate issued by the
Chilean Ministry of the Environment . This certificate allows our customers to quantify retreading within their carbon footprint and
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along with many of the big copper mines in Chile so we grew together with them and this shared journey is important in the relationships that have built up over that time . I would also say we are known for our innovation – we have an in-house innovation department which is responsible for developing and updating our two main tools for the mining tyres market – Bailac GTS which is a TPMS for remote montoring of tyres but goes beyond that in having dust measurement , accelerometers and other functionalities such as haul road surveying – anything that affects the tyres we are looking at . We also have Bailac Pascual Enterprise Tire Management , a business management software that optimises the management and administration of tyres , rims and chains of OTR equipment .”
Bailac also has experience of managing tyres on autonomous truck fleets , such as at Codelco ’ s Gaby operation . And it has a leading role in supply ancillary equipment for tyre management including jacks and manipulators from B & D Manufacturing as well as MAGNI telehandlers .
Bailac is broadly divided into a northern Chile and southern Chile business with Bailac Thor ’ s big HQ in the north in Iquique plus a presence on-site at mines like Codelco ’ s Chuquicamata , Teck ’ s QB2 and BHP Escondida . In the south the Bailac San Ltda HQ is in Santiago and
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thus helps them meet their CO 2 goals . Valorisation is a step before recycling ; it promotes a circular economy , and it ' s what Bailac has been doing for 99 years [ 100 years in 2025 ]."
It was recently mentioned in Codelco ’ s latest sustainability report for
2023 where the copper miner states : “ With the support of the Bailac company , we retread more than 200 mining tyres in 2023 . This process , which involves removing the worn tread and replacing it with a new one , not only maintains quality and safety standards of mining tyres , but also prevented the generation of 480,000 kilograms of waste .”
Raimundo Bailac told IM this retread leadership is based on many years of experience of managing tyres and knowing the right time to take the casing for retread plus of course the quality of the retread itself , with safety a top priority . Also he emphasised that retreading is something that is hard to automate – you need skilled people in the process . That is one of Bailac ’ s core strengths – training and teaching its people and combining that with having the right materials , using the right processes , working with the right compounds etc . This applies both to retreading and general tyre repairs .
Finally it is important to emphasise that Bailac is also present outside of Chile with activities in Brazil and Argentina .
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