Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd. (MRC), the manufacture of carbon fibers and intermediate carbon materials, today announce that MRC has resumed construction of new carbon fiber plant to be operational from the second quarter of 2011. Previously MRC had suspended the construction since 2009 March in response to global economic conditions and the corresponding downturn in carbon fiber markets.

Overview
Original start-up timing: from 2009 Q4
Revised start-up timing: from 2011 Q2
Location: Otake production center, Hiroshima pref, Japan
Production Capacity: 2,700 metric tons / year
Product: “P330 series” High performance large tow carbon fiber mainly for industrial use
Capital investment: 12 billion yen

Background and prospect
MRC started new plant construction to meet increasing demand especially from growing industries, such as wind blade, pressure vessel, and automotive, which was expected to keep growing in long term. However, since many projects had been delayed or suspended under economic recession after Lehman’s fall, we decided to suspend new plant construction and put off start-up date by a year.
MRC has just made a decision to resume construction since demand from sport and leisure applications has been increasing significantly from early 2010, and suspended big industrial projects start kicking in, and existing factories has been nearly fully utilized.
Until we start manufacturing new product (P330 series) at new plant in Japan, we will continue making these new products at Grafil in the US for initial customers’ evaluation and marketing. We are going to make best efforts to achieve consistent secured supply, and explore new markets aggressively with new products.

P330 series
P330 series performs as our standard small tow (i.e. High strength fiber TR50S/TRH50), however the filament count is larger (50-60k). Comparing with standard small tow fibers (less than 24K), P330 series has better process ability for large composites and performs like standard small tow. We believe that this product will push the technical envelop in carbon fiber market. This new plant will not only be the first plant to produce high performance large tow in earnest over the world, but also it will be the largest carbon fiber plant (2,700t/Y) in capacity in history.