Osaka Titanium Technologies Restarts Sponge Expansion Phase 2

Osaka Titanium Technologies announced on Wednesday the firm restarts a part of pending sponge titanium expansion program at the headquarters plant in Hyogo. The firm adds new facility with annual 6,000 tonnes of output capacity at the plant by April 2011 expanding the output capacity to 38,000 tonnes.

The firm expanded the sponge titanium output capacity by 33% or 8,000 tonnes to annual 32,000 tonnes in October 2008 as the first phase of the expansion. The firm started the additional 6,000 tonnes of second phase and the another 3,000 tonnes of third phase, which was planned to complete in July and October 2009 respectively, but the firm postponed the works for 2 years when the demand dropped sharply due to severe delivery delay for new airplane and major inventory adjustment under worldwide slow economy.

The firm decided to restart the second phase, which was stopped with around 80% of completion, and complete the works with additional 1.1 billion yen of investment when titanium demand recovers for airplane from the beginning of the year and is expected to increase more. The firm plans to start the part of the expanded facility in November and to complete the works in April 2011. The firm tries to find the timing to restart the third phase, which was completed 30% of the works, depending on the market.

The sponge titanium operation decreased to as low as 45% of annual 32,000 tonnes of output capacity from July 2009 to early 2010. The operation rate reaches around 70% of the capacity or annualized 21,000 tonnes level recently. The firm expects the operation reaches 38,000 tonnes of full capacity in mid-2011 after the firm renews idled small sized 5 tonnes furnace.

The firm restarted polysilicon facility at Amagasaki plant in Hyogo on August 21 after 3-month stop. The firm stopped the operation on May 20 due to violation of high pressure gas safety act. The firm adjusted the facility and restarted the facility at limited operation level. The plant restarted the polysilicon production on August 24. The firm plans around 600 tonnes of polysilicon production for the year to March 2011. The firm now adjusts the design of new Kishiwasda plant in Osaka and expects the commercial production in February 2011.