Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. (Tokyo) will implement over ¥80 billion ($693 million) in facility investments for its silicones business, one of its main businesses, with the aim of further expanding and strengthening this business.
As a result of the announcement in September 2018 concerning its facility investment plan of ¥110 billion for its silicones business, Shin-Etsu Chemical increased its production capacity of silicone monomer, the intermediate material of silicones, at its two bases in Japan and Thailand by about 1.5 times, compared to the previous level. The company has implemented appropriate investments so far in this downstream area of its silicones business. However, because there is very strong demand for advanced functional products, Shin-Etsu plans to further increase production capacity in this business field as a result of this new facility investment. Shin-Etsu has already stated that it will strengthen the development of new silicone products and put the emphasis in our products structure on so-called specialty products.
The new facility investments will increase our production capacity of highly diversified types of silicone fluids, resins and rubber end products. In addition, we will go forward with our endeavors toward contributing to the reduction of the environmental impact and to the development of advanced technologies such as by introducing equipment for molding silicone rubber that does not require post cure and by introducing trial production equipment for Micro LED-related materials, which will improve productivity and save energy. This new series of facility investments will be implemented centering around our plants in Japan, starting with our main plant, the Gunma Complex in Gunma Prefecture, as well as the Takefu Plant in Fukui Prefecture and the Naoetsu Plant in Niigata Prefecture. We aim to sequentially complete these capacity-expansion projects and begin operations by 2025.
Shin-Etsu Chemical will contribute to the realization of the sustainability of society by striving to enhance our ability to contribute to the solutions of various societal and customer issues by developing and supplying silicone products that have high-added value through making use of the knowhow and technological strengths that we have accumulated up to now.