Nippon Shindo Starts New Plant Groundwork in Late July

Nippon Shindo, Osaka based copper alloy manufacturer, plans to start groundwork of its new plant in Sakai City, Osaka in late July and construction of the plant building in late August. The groundwork is preparation for heavy productive facilities such as melting furnaces and extruding machines. The building completion is scheduled in March 2010 and the operation commencement in July 2010.

Nippon Shindo will transfer its operation in the existent plant in Sakai to the new plant on 36,700-square-meter site of Nippon Steel’s previous Sakai works. The new plant will become an integrated productive site of brass bar and wire.

The new plant will introduce two 1,000kW horizontal continuous casting furnaces, two 450kW vertical casting furnaces and a 3,000-tonne indirect extrusion press. From the existent plant, a continuous combining machine for thin- and middle-size products and a large drawing bench will be transferred.

The new plant will start operation in July 2010. The existent plant will continue operation with the new plant for maximum 6 months, transferring workers to the new plant gradually. The second factory for melting and casting processes inside the existent plant will continue billet supply to the new plant for a while.

The first factory of the existent plant will be torn down. The site will be abandoned to Hanshin Expressway Public Corporation by March 2011.