Sumitomo Pipe & Tube to Expand Guangzhou Plant

Sumitomo Pipe & Tube leading automotive pipe making joint venture, Guangzhou YOU-RI Automotive Parts, in which Sumitomo Corporation and Nippon Steel have interest, expands the plant by around 2,000 square maters by early 2007 to change the layout for better efficiency. The firm considers adding cutting machine and processing machine in future. The firm expects to post first yearly profit for the year to December when the output is reaching to monthly 500 tonnes under firm demand. Sumitomo Pipe & Tube and Sumitomo Corp. established the joint venture in November 2003 and Nippon Steel joined the venture in December 2004. The venture has plant with around 3,700 square meters of floor space on the 20,000 square meters of land. The firm produces carbon steel and stainless steel high frequency electric resistance welding pipe at the plant with monthly 1,500 tonnes of output capacity. The firm can produce pipe items with 25.4-63.5 millimeters outer diameter and 0.8-3.5 mm of thick. The firm said the output will reach the initial target of 500 tonnes per month by early 2007. The firm decided the expansion with expectation for higher demand eyeing adding machine to expand cutting process operations. The firm will use the wider space for other than pipe making operations as cutting, inspection and stocking.