Osaka Titanium Restarts Some of Suspended Sponge Facilities

Osaka Titanium Technologies announced on Thursday the firm restarted some of suspended facilities for titanium sponge and raised the operation rate to 60% or 19,000 tonnes per year. The demand has improved for titanium sponge since inventory adjustment has progressed for export, mainly for airplanes.

Osaka Titanium had lowered titanium sponge operation rate to 45% against the capacity, equal to approximately 15,000 tonnes per year, since July 2009. The operation rate recovered to above 50% this spring thanks to conclusion of several long-term contracts in 2010.

Osaka Titanium announced on the same day the firm posted non-consolidated recurring loss at 711 million yen for April-June 2010. One of negative factors was suspension of polycrystalline silicon facilities. The titanium business’ 3-month net sales decreased by 7.3% year-on-year. The sales for export increased by 9.4% to 2.225 billion yen and approached the sales for domestic market at 2.321 billion yen.