Mitsubishi Materials to Expand Forgings Sales for Airplane

Mitsubishi Materials expands the metal process business for airplane industry. The firm expands the forging facility of nickel alloy and titanium alloy for airplane. The expansion is estimated to increase the output capacity to 3-4 times from now increasing the world market share of high performance airplane materials to 10% in fiscal 2012 ending March 2013 from 3% in fiscal 2006. The firm also expands the cemented carbide tool sales for airplane while automobile is main user now. The high performance materials making Okegawa plant in Saitama produces forging products including nickel and titanium alloy engine ring mill products and engine rotary disks for airplane. The plant started operation of new press machine with 7,000 tonnes of capacity in November 2004. The plant studies to add ring mill rolling machine, reheat furnace and melting facility in 3 years from now to meet higher demand when airplane production is expected to grow annual 5%. The firm also renews the production process to meet larger engine and complicated parts. The firm tries to expand the high performance materials sales for airplane to 8 billion yen in fiscal 2009 from 5.5 billion yen in fiscal 2006 under 3-year plan to fiscal 2009. The firm expects the world market share will increase to 7% in fiscal 2009 from 3%. The firm should expand the capacity more for 10% world market share target in 2012. The firm tries to clear bottleneck processes through expansion in 3 years for higher output capacity after fiscal 2010. The firm also expands the cemented carbide tool sales for airplane from 1.5 billion yen in fiscal 2006 to 5.5 billion yen in fiscal 2009. The firm tries to expand the world market share from 0.7% to 2%.