Furukawa-Sky to Establish Aluminium Plate Plant in Thailand

Furukawa-Sky Aluminum Corp. announced on Friday the firm establishes a wholly-owned aluminium plate rolling plant in Thailand. Downstream processes from cold rolling is planned to start in January 2014 and upper stream processes from casting will also commence within 2014. Total capital expenditure is estimated at approximately 40 billion yen. Output capacity from casting process will reach 100,000 tonnes per year. Annual net sales are forecasted at 40 billion yen with recurring profit at 5 billion yen in full operation. Furukawa-Sky tries to meet regional demand growth for aluminium plate in Southeast Asia.

Furukawa-Sky decided to purchase a plant site of 350,000 square meters inside Amata City Industrial Estate in Rayon Province of Thailand. Plant construction will start in March 2012. Cold rolling facilities will be transferred to the new plant from Furukawa-Sky’s Nikko plant in Tochigi, Japan after Nikko plant’s upstream processes are suspended.

Cold rolling mill and other facilities will start production in January 2014 with mother plates supplied from Japan. Output capacity is expected at approximately 60,000 tonnes per year in this phase. Capex for plant construction will total approximately 13 billion yen.

In the second phase, casting and other facilites will start production in fall of 2014. Output capacity is forecasted to reach 100,000 tonnes per year. Furukawa-Sky will formally decide whether to transfer upper stream facilities from Nikko works or to purchase new facilities.

The new plant will mainly produce plates for automotive heat exchangers and cans. In recent years, business investment is activated for car industry in Thailand and demand is expected to increase for automotive heat exchangers. Meanwhile, local users are currently increasing local material procurement. Can makers are also offering local material production and supply in Thailand when can consumption is steadily increasing in the country.

Furukawa-Sky decided offshore production and direct material supply to the users. The operation is expected to turn into the black in fiscal 2015. Furukawa-Sky plans to raise money mainly by internally generated funds while the firm is considering indirect financing from banks in the case.