TOKYO, JAPAN: Mitsubishi Chemical posted over a six-fold increase in net profits for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011, compared with the previous fiscal year. The company profits stood at ¥ 83.6 billion ($ 1.03 billion). Sales for the fiscal year increased by 26 per cent, to ¥ 3.16 trillion, mainly due to a recovery in demand at the company’s performance products and industrial materials business segments, said Mitsubishi. Sales improved also because Mitsubishi Rayon became a consolidated subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical in March 2010.
Sales at Mitsubishi’s chemicals segment increased 14 per cent for the fiscal year, to ¥ 895.4 billion. Operating profits for the segment increased more than seven fold, compared with the previous fiscal year, to about ¥ 53 billion, due to improved margins and higher sales volumes, said the company. Mitsubishi’s ethylene output for the fiscal year increased 4.5 per cent to 1.19 million mt due to a scale-down of regular maintenance at the company’s steam crackers.
During the fiscal year, the Japanese economy was on a recovery trend with the upturn in consumer spending and capital expenditure, and an increase in exports particularly to Asia. However the earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11 caused tremendous damage to the Tohoku and Kanto regions and led to a sharp decrease in production activities and consumer spending, informed the company.
“The business environment for Mitsubishi Chemical was generally favourable during the fiscal year. However our business environment became challenging because of the suspension of production activities at the company’s Kashima manufacturing complex, as a result of the earthquake,” said Mitsubishi.
Mitsubishi Chemical says that one of the two steam crackers at its Kashima manufacturing complex will restart by May 20. The complex’s other cracker is expected to restart by June 27. The entire Kashima complex, including onsite power-generation facilities, was shut following the earthquake. Kashima is in Ibaraki prefecture, to the east of Tokyo. The Kashima crackers have combined capacity for about 830,000 mt/year of ethylene. Japan’s total ethylene capacity is 7.79 million mt/year, according to SRI Consulting (Tokyo).
(C) Chemweek News