Tokyo Zairyo Co. Ltd. has posted its business results for fiscal 2020, showing a hit to its performance across the board. Sales revenue for the raw materials-focused trading firm fell 10.4 percent year-on-year to 77.7 billion yen ($699.65 million), while ordinary profit fell 27.2 percent to 1.9 billion yen and net profit fell 35.5 percent to 1.35 billion yen. In...
Materials
Asahi Kasei Leans on Next-Gen Offerings in Pursuit of Further Growth for S-SBR Products
Asahi Kasei Corp. (TYO:3407) saw operations slump for its solution-polymerized styrene–butadiene rubber (S-SBR) and butadiene rubber (BR) last fiscal year, with COVID-19 making its impact felt on the sector. Both of these products, however, started to show a significant sales recovery starting last summer. On the back of this recovery, Asahi Kasei’s aim coming into fiscal 2021 has been to...

Trading Firm Kato Sansho Jointly Develops Biomass Additive Series
Kato Sansho Co. Ltd. has worked with Ichinen Chemicals Co. Ltd. to develop One Bio, a series of biomass additives derived from plants. One Bio B-001 is an 80 percent plant-derived additive that can be simply mixed with polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) – materials which make up around half of Japan’s plastics market – to raise the biomass content...
Asahi Kasei Projects Sales and Income Growth for 2021 Following Decline in 2020
Asahi Kasei Corp. (TYO:3407) has reported its business results for fiscal 2020, showing a year-on-year decline to both sales and income metrics. The company posted sales revenue of 2.11 trillion yen ($19.33 billion), down 2.1 percent year-on-year; operating income of 171.81 billion yen, down 3.1 percent; ordinary income of 178.04 billion yen, down 3.2 percent; and net income of 79.77...
Evonik Develops Highly Dispersible Silica for Wide-Ranging Use
Evonik Industries AG recently announced Ultrasil 4000 GR, a silica with high dispersibility and low specific surface area to allow for an extremely high silica fill ratio in tire treads. Compared to using conventional silica, Ultrasil 4000 GR vastly improves traction for winter tires on snowy and slushy roads. Ultrasil’s grades also have uses beyond tire treads and sidewalls, including...
Mitsui Chemicals Reports Mixed Bag of Results for 2020; Anticipates Surge in Chinese EPDM Sales
Mitsui Chemicals Inc. (TYO:4183) has posted its results for fiscal 2020. The company recorded 1.21 trillion yen ($11.09 billion) in sales revenue for the year, down 10.2 percent year-on-year; 85.14 billion yen in core operating income, up 17.7 percent; and 57.87 billion yen in net income, up 70.4 percent. This marks a new record high for the company’s core operating...