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Toray aims to optimize TORAYCA global operations

02
Mar '07

Toray will also build a precursor production line at CFA along with this increase in carbon fiber production capacity.

With respect to prepreg, the company will add a production line with annual capacity of 5.8 million m2 at its U.S. subsidiary Toray Composites America, Inc. (TCA; Tacoma, Washington, the U.S.) and newly build a line with similar capacity at its Ishikawa Plant in Japan.

The additional investments will enable Toray to enhance its supply structure for the materials for B787, a new passenger aircraft which Boeing Co. of the U.S. aims to introduce in 2008, and strengthen its high value-added products business while ensuring a stable supply structure to respond to the rise of new demand in sports and general industrial applications and the tight supply and demand balance.

With these expansions, Toray aims to optimize its TORAYCA global operations based on the three international bases of Japan, the U.S. and France by enhancing the production structure for materials ranging from precursor to prepreg.

Currently, the worldwide demand for PAN-based carbon fibers is estimated at about 27,000 tons (2006) and the demand is expected to continue expanding at an annual rate of 15% in the future.

In addition to the impact of the full-scale expansion in demand for aircraft application centered on B787, the global demand is expected to reach 45,500 tons in 2010 on increase in demand for alternative energy-related applications including CNG tanks and the material's full-scale penetration into the automobile filed in the future.

Toray Industries Inc

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