MOSCOW (MRC) -- Toray Industries will add production capacity for polyolefin foams in the U.S. by January 2018, to meet growing demand for the material used in auto interiors, as per Asia.nikkei.
The Japanese major plans to invest USD43 mln to install equipment for 3,000 tons of additional annual capacity at its plant in Virginia. This will increase Toray's global capacity for polyolefin foams by 40% to 11,000 tons a year.
In the U.S., where drivers like interior materials with a feeling of solidity, there is a growing demand among automakers for polyolefin foams. The material now is used mainly for the door interiors of pickup trucks, but Toray anticipates a widening of demand to include instrument panels.
As MRC informed earlier, Toray supplies its polyolefin foams to General Motors and other leading U.S. automakers, as well as Toyota Motor and Honda Motor for vehicles they make for the North American market. The company also makes the material in Japan, but it established production in the U.S. to respond quickly to local needs. Toray has set goals of supplying materials for a wider range of cars and broadening the applications beyond door interiors. With the expanded production, Toray expects its polyolefin foam-related sales to reach 15 billion yen in 2019, which would be a 50% increase over 2015.
Toray Industries is a multinational corporation headquartered in Japan that specializes in industrial products centered around technologies in organic synthetic chemistry, polymer chemistry, and biochemistry. Its founding business areas were fibers and textiles, as well as plastics and chemicals. Toray Group Malaysia companies are involved in four main businesses -- polyester fibres, textiles, plastic resins and polyester films.
MRC