Toray Advanced Materials Korea to Mass-produce Carbon Fiber in 2013

Holds a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the nation's first carbon fiber production facility

Toray Advanced Materials Korea has launched a project to mass-produce carbon fiber in 2013. The company held a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the nation's first carbon fiber facility in Toray Advanced Materials Korea's Gumi Third Plant in Gyeongsangbuk-do on June 28.
Among some 300 people on hand at the ceremony were Gyeongsanbuk-do Gov. Kim Kwan-yong; Vice Minister of Knowledge Economy Kim Jung-gwan; Japanese Ambassador to Korea Masatoshi Muto; K-water President Kim Kuen-ho; Toray Industries Chairman Sadayuki Sakakibara; Toray Industries President Akihiro Nikkaku; and Toray Advanced Materials Korea President Lee Young-kwan.
Toray Industries and Toray Advanced Materials Korea also signed an MOU with the Gyeongsangbuk-do provincial government, the Gumi City government and K-water to invest 1.3 trillion won in another project to expand Toray Advanced Materials Korea's carbon fiber production capacity and widen its business environs on a site of 790,000 square meters in the Gumi National Industrial Complex.
Toray Advanced Materials Korea plans to build infrastructure for mass-producing 2 million tons annually of its carbon fiber TORAYCA products with the world's highest competitive edge starting in January 2013.
Carbon fiber has been recognized as an environmentally-friendly dream material that can conserve energy by reducing the weight of automobiles, ships and wind power components and materials. Carbon fiber is 10 times as strong, one-fourth as light, and seven times as elastic as iron. It has many applications in almost all industries ranging from the aerospace, aviation and automobile fields to shipping and other maritime transportation sectors, new and renewable energy fields and electric, electronics and civil engineering and construction sectors.
MKE Vice Minister Kim said in his congratulatory speech at the ceremony, Mass-producing carbon fiber products in Korea is likely to not only contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of the Korean industries using carbon fiber as a raw material, but also to serve as an opportunity for Korean and Japanese companies to make a joint foray into the global market, and the establishment of Toray Advanced Materials Korea's carbon fiber plant will favorably influence its overseas entry at a time when the Korea-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) recently went into effect and the Korea-U.S. FTA is to be effective later.
Toray Industries President Nikkaku said Toray's Green Innovation Project will contribute to solving the earth's environmental, resources and energy issues, and the expansion of carbon fiber will offer important solutions to those same problems facing human beings in the 21st century and play a bigger role in tackling the earth's tasks.
Toray Advanced Materials Korea's upcoming production of carbon fiber, which Korea has so far wholly imported, will serve as an opportunity for the nation to localize the material and establish a stable supply system as well as create new demand and engage in joint research for carbon fiber composites by forging strategic cooperation with related parts & materials and finished products makers, Toray Advanced Materials Korea said.
Toray Advanced Materials Korea will continue to expand carbon fiber production capacity so as to realize the Toray Group's global operation strategy to establish a quadruple production regime covering Japan, France, the United States and Korea with the goal of expanding the carbon fiber composite business.
The size of the Korean carbon fiber market is predicted to surge from 2,400 tons in 2010 to 14,000 tons in 2020, the officials said. The Chinese carbon fiber market is forecast to jump from 7,400 tons in 2010 to 32,300 tons in 2020.
Toray Advanced Materials Korea's investment in the carbon fiber segment will likely boost the global competitiveness of related industries, thus contributing to helping Korea create new markets worth approximately 10 trillion won and more than 30,000 jobs, they said. nw

(from left) Toray Industries Chairman Sadayuki Sakakibara speaks at a groundbreaking ceremony for the nation's first carbon fiber facility in Gumi, Gyeongsangbuk-do on June 28. Dignitaries, including Toray Industries Chairman Sakakibara and Toray Advanced Materials Korea President Lee Young-kwan, attend the groundbreaking ceremony.

Photo on Courtesy of Toray