Business performance for JSR Corp. (TYO:4185) suffered somewhat over the first quarter of the 2016 fiscal year. The large synthetic-rubber manufacturer announced on July 25 that sales for April–June saw a year-on-year drop of 7 percent, falling to 88.786 billion yen ($878.535 million); operating profit fell 24 percent, down to 5.637 billion yen; pretax profit dropped by 20 percent, at...
Responding to increased global demand, Mitsui Chemicals Inc. (TYO:4183) will increase annual production capacity of its Milastomer thermoplastic elastomer by 5,000 tons. The company will invest almost 1 billion yen ($10 million) in expanding production facilities of its wholly-owned subsidiary Sun Alloys Co. Ltd., adding one production line of 5,000 annual tons. Construction will start in February 2017 and is planned...
Tokai Carbon Co. Ltd. (TYO:5301) announced on July 13 that it will increase the price at which it sells carbon black by 6.5 yen per kilogram for deliveries beginning Aug. 1. The change will apply to all varieties of carbon black the company sells in Japan. In its announcement, Tokai Carbon explained that the price of crude oil used to...
Zeon Corp. (TYO:4205) recently completed its expansion of production capacity at Mizushima Plant, Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, for the Quintac series of styrene isoprene (SIS) thermoplastic elastomers and the Zeonex and Zeonor lines of cyclo-olefin polymer (COP), a high-transparency thermoplastic resin. With the enhancements made to the plant, annual SIS production capacity jumps from 42,000 tons to 60,000 tons, while that...
Lanxess’ Japanese subsidiary, Lanxess K.K., recently announced that it has extended its charitable grant to the Ozawa International Chamber Music Academy Okushiga (OICMA) for one year, from January 2016 to December 2016. Established by famed conductor Seiji Ozawa in June 2011, OICMA was set up with the goal of providing talented young musicians from across Asia an opportunity to learn...
Showa Denko K.K. (TYO:4004) enjoyed strong chloroprene rubber (CR) business during the January-June half of 2016 despite a rise in the yen’s value against other currencies. Although the business verged on stagnation in Japan, South Korea and China, performance was solid in the U.S., Europe and Southeast Asia. In the U.S. in particular, products for automotive, construction and adhesive applications sold...
