Daiki Aluminium Industry to Restart Shirakawa Plant in May

Daiki Aluminium Industry, Japanese largest secondary aluminium alloy maker, plans to restart Shirakawa plant in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan in late April or May. Shirakawa plant fired a melting furnace dedicated to RSI (re-melted aluminium can scrap ingot) production on Monday and started to remove solidified aluminium melt inside the furnace. The plant will also restart the other melting furnaces soon.

Shirakawa plant has suspended operation due to the major earthquake in Japan. When Shirakawa plant restarts production, Daiki will rebalance domestic plant’s operations including staff distribution.

At present, Daiki’s domestic plants, Kameyama plant, Shiga plant, Yuki plant and Shinshiro plant are under full capacity operation. Daiki restarted Shinshiro plant, which had been suspended since 2010, this month and raised output at the other plants to cover reduction at Shirakawa plant.

Daiki’s sale volume in April is forecasted to represent 80% against the original plan. Order volume is roughly fluctuating day by day with the users’ offers for delivery deferment, order cancel or additional order. As for automotive applications, which account for 80% of secondary aluminium alloy total demand, the users’ operation recovery degree differs. For the other applications, alloy demand is relatively stable including orders related to after-quake restoration.