Kaneka establishing a new plant of expanded polyolefin foam in Thailand

Kaneka Corporation (Osaka,Japan; President: Mamoru Kadokura) has decided to establish a new plant of expanded polyolefin foam (product name: EPERAN™, EPERAN™-PP) in Hemaraj Eastern Seaboard Industrial Estate, Rayong, Thailand aiming at a further business expansion as well as meeting the increasing demand in the Southeast Asia and India region. Kaneka (Thailand) Co., Ltd., one of our group companies, will invest approximately 2 billion yen to start operation capable of producing 3,000 ton of products per year in September 2018. The production capacity in the region will be over 6,000 ton per year together with those produced in the existing facilities in Malaysia (company name: Kaneka Eperan Sdn. Bhd.).

(*) EPERAN™ and EPERAN™-PP are product names of expanded polyethylene foam and of expanded polypropylene respectively. They feature excellent heat resistance, shock resistance and chemical resistance. In addition to cushioning materials for home appliances and precision equipment, they are widely used for automotive parts such as bumper and seat cores and contributing to weight reduction of vehicles.

The expanded polyolefin foam market in the Southeast Asia and India region is expected to grow over 30% in 2020 compared with 2015, mainly in automobile application due to an expanding number of automobile production and increasing needs for weight reduction. We will expand a global supply network in addition to the existing plant locations in Japan, Europe, China and Malaysia to accelerate the business expansion by building a new plant in Thailand which is the center of the automobile industry and has the greatest demand for the expanded polyolefin foam in the region.

Prior to the operation of the new plant, we open our Bangkok Office (provisional name) under Kaneka (Thailand) Co., Ltd. as a marketing office in October. Recently, Thailand is actively promoting introduction and fostering of high value-added industries such as biomedicine, medicine, energy, etc. in addition to being the biggest center of industries in Southeast Asia such as electric and electronic products and food as well as automobiles. We strive to expand our business in Thailand through strengthening our market development.