Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding to Expand Steel Process Capacity

Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding builds new plate processing plant at Tamano plant in Okayama, which is the major plant for shipbuilding, for around 2.7 billion yen starting operation in April 2008. With the new plant, the processing capacity increases to 1.7 times at monthly 8,000 tonnes. The firm, which depends the 40% of the processing on outside suppliers, tries to reduce the outsourcing cost through the plant with shot blast, cutting and antirust treatment.

The new plant has around 20,000 square meters of land, which is twice of existing processing plant. The firm builds 2 plant building with automation cutting machines and cranes along with steel deposit yard. The firm stops the existing processing plant after the launch of the new plant, which can cover the all processing requirement at the shipbuilding plant.

The firm constructed 1.5 million gross ton of ship and got 430 billion yen of new order in fiscal 2006 ended March 2007 under the strong demand. The firm expects the new processing plant could halve the processing cost from now. The firm tries to improve the cost competitiveness when the prices of shipbuilding steel products increased since fiscal 2004.