Marubeni-Itochu Steel to Establish New Plate Cutting Factory in Australia

Marubeni-Itochu Steel Corporation decided construction of no.5 factory for Total Steel of Australia (TSA), Marubeni-Itochu Steel’s subsidiary to process steel plates in Australia. The new factory will be built in Darwin City, Northern Territory with approximately 500 million yen investment. Regional demand is increasing for steel plate from construction machines for mine development or energy development. The construction will start in the first half of 2011. No.5 factory is planned to sell steel products at around 10,000 tonnes per year. TSA aims to increase the total sales by 50% to 60,000 tonnes in 2014 from the present.

In North Australia, international oil companies, such as Chevron, plan large development projects for oil and natural gas. The region is abundant with iron ore, rare metal and natural gas. Steel demand is expanding for construction machines to be used in mine and energy industries in Northern Territory. President party of the province visited Marubeni-Itochu Steel’s head office in Tokyo in august 2010 to require investment in the region.

Marubeni-Itochu Steel constructs TSA’s no.5 factory to follow steel demand growth for resource development and to enhance customer services for local construction machine makers and fabricators. The new factory will introduce an oxygen gas cutting machine and a plasma cutting machine.

TSA operates 4 factories in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Each factory has 2-4 cutting machines to supply steel plate for mine developing industry. At the same time, TSA resells long products, steel tubes and steel sheets. TSA is only one Japanese company to process and sell steel plate for construction machines in Australia.