Zeon Corp. (TYO:4205) has announced its consolidated net sales declined by 4 percent year-on-year to 295.6 billion yen ($2.8 billion), and its net income decreased by 5 percent to 18 billion yen for the fiscal year ending March 2016. Price drops in export thermoplastic elastomers and rubbers, led by general-purpose rubbers, negatively affected the earnings for the period. Meanwhile, consolidated...
JSR BST Elastomer Co. Ltd. (JBE) plans to begin commercial operations of its phase-two plant in the second half of current fiscal year (April-October 2016). JBE, a joint venture between JSR Corp. (TYO:4185) and Thailand’s Bangkok Synthetics Co. Ltd., manufactures solution styrene butadiene rubber (S-SBR) in Thailand. The new facility is located adjacent to the phase-one plant. Its annual production...
Lanxess AG is focusing on investment for organic growth, said Matthias Zachert, chairman of the German chemical firm’s management board at a press conference at Tokyo’s Palace Hotel during a recent visit to Japan. Outlining corporate activities for fiscal 2016, he said that the company has been working to rebuild business operations during the 24 months following his appointment. According...
Lotte Ube Synthetic Rubber SDN BHD (LUSR), a Malaysian polybutadiene rubber (BR) manufacturing joint venture of Ube Industries Ltd. (TYO:4208), has reached the final stages of preparations for full-fledged operations. Ube Industries’ fourth BR manufacturing location, LUSR will have a production capacity of 50,000 tons per year. It began commercial operations in June 2015. At the current stage, operations are...
A five-member team led by Motoyuki Shima has received the 64th CSJ Award for Technical Development from the Chemical Society of Japan. Shima is General Manager of the Semiconductor Materials Laboratory, one of the Fine Electronic Materials Research Laboratories at JSR Corp. (TYO:4185). The award recognizes the team’s development of a topcoat material for use in argon fluoride (ArF) immersion...
Chinese tire manufacturers, even the ones that make the best product, have experienced flat year-on-year growth for passenger vehicle tires, while year-on-year performance is down 30 percent for truck and bus tires. Even so, local tire makers say this situation is good for their companies. Things are said to be even worse for off-road (OR) tires for construction vehicles. This...
