Mitsui Mining & Smelting to Stop Omuta TAB Plant

Mitsui Mining & Smelting announced on Tuesday the tape automated bonding tape making subsidiary, MCS stops operation of the Omuta plant in Fukuoka by end of April 2011. The firm focuses the domestic production into headquarters of Shimonoseki plant in Yamaguchi while the firm reduces around 500 of workforce by end of May 2011. The firm expects annual several hundreds million yen of cost reduction through the restructuring when the demand shrinks in the domestic market.

The firm transfers TAB inspection process from Omuta to Shimonoseki. Mitsui Mining & Smelting announced in March 2009 TAB business restructuring to reduce production capacity by 40% to around 75 million units per month at Shimonoseki plant. The firm now tries to reduce the capacity to 70 million units by reducing the workforce by 500 from around 1,000 of employees including 880 in Shimonoseki and 120 in Omuta as of October 1.

MCS expects 10-13 billion yen of sales in the year ending March 2011 compared with 30.5 billion yen in the year ended March 2009 and 15.2 billion yen in the year ended March 2010. The firm is world top TAB maker with estimated around 20% of market share. The business, however, posted loss in July-September after the business regained profitability earlier the year after the former restructuring.