Nihon Seiko Mulls Shanghai Sales Company

Japanese largest antimony trioxide maker, Nihon Seiko started study to launch wholly owned sales company in Shanghai, China. The firm tries to launch the company in fiscal 2012 started April depending on the authority’s approval. The sales company provides antimony products from Hyogo plant and Chinese partner to transplants of Japanese users.

Japanese antimony demand decreased to 11,200 tonnes in 2011 from 13,700 tonnes in 2010. The lower demand is apparently due to slower worldwide economy and the users’ operation shift to offshore plants. The firm decided the sales base in China to cover growing demand of the country while the firm improves the service for local users.

Nihon Seiko completes expansion work of packaging line at Hyogo plant by September 2012. The firm doubles the packaging capacity to shorten the lead time and reduce finished inventory while the production capacity of antimony products is still annual 6,500 tonnes.

The packaging line is bottleneck now when the lead time gets longer during full capacity operation. With the expansion, the firm can reduce the inventory to minimize the price change risk of antimony when the ingot price is US$ 14,000 per tonne, which is lower than peak of US$ 17,000 in March 2011 and near 3 times of the level in 3 years ago.