Earnings, deals and disclosures from Japan's listed materials & chemicals companies, in English.
Mitsui Kinzoku will spend about ¥190bn on a Malaysian plant for MicroThin and VSP copper foil, funded from cash and borrowings, with staged start-up from April 2031, as it also lifts its dividend target to 4.0% of equity.
Three idle Yatsushiro paper machines will not restart after earthquake damage, Nippon Paper decided, while the mill's household-paper project is under review and new uses for the site are being studied.
Mitsubishi Chemical Group has cancelled its exit from needle coke and pitch coke at Kagawa after finding it difficult to reach its carbon fiber targets with other companies' feedstock; production pauses in the business year beginning April 2027, with a restart expected a year later.
Nippon Kodoshi will invest about ¥15bn in a new Yonago line, raising separator capacity to roughly 1.3 times the current level for AI-server and data-centre demand, with operation planned from December 2028.
Osaka Organic Chemical now plans to spend about ¥20bn on its Yamagata semiconductor-materials plant, twice the December figure, with construction pushed to 2027 and completion to 2029 after higher costs and a revised equipment list.
Kose Holdings received 199 applications for its early retirement program against a target of about 80, and expects a ¥2.5bn special loss in the third quarter that an office property sale gain should offset, leaving guidance unchanged.
Nissan Chemical has registered a wholly owned subsidiary in Zhangjiagang with 210mn yuan of registered capital to make BARC and multilayer semiconductor materials near Chinese customers, with a first remittance of 89mn yuan planned for 15 October.
Harima Chemicals Group will stop production at LAWTER (N.Z.) on 30 June 2027 and close the plant in May 2028, expecting a roughly ¥2.8bn special loss after three years of operating losses at the unit.
JX Advanced Metals and Tronox plan to fund half each of a $32mn study, targeted to finish in 2027, on whether a rare-earth refining business of up to about 10,000 tonnes a year is viable in Australia, the US or elsewhere.
Arisawa Mfg. has a grant decision capping its METI subsidy at ¥2.127bn for a roughly ¥14bn Gifu plant, but the payout depends on a post-completion inspection and comes with a 7.6% average annual pay-rise target.
Achilles Corporation's board has resolved to end production at its wholly owned vehicle-materials plant in Foshan, China, by the end of September, after three years of losses that included a ¥3.26bn impairment, citing the retreat of Japanese automakers from China among its reasons, though it expects only a minor effect on its earnings outlook for the year to March 2027.
Air Water is screening every subsidiary in its group on strategic fit, financial performance and governance, and says businesses judged better suited to a different owner will be transferred promptly, with proceeds funding both extra shareholder payouts and ongoing growth investment.
METI has certified Central Glass's plan to build new anhydrous hydrofluoric acid capacity at its Ube plant, unlocking as much as ¥17.6bn in subsidy under Japan's economic-security law, though the company says investment details and the near-term earnings impact remain modest.
The Tokyo-listed colorant and pigment maker will stop offset-ink production in Sapporo by December 2026 and close the site by March 2027, while its Osaka colorant plant runs until September 2028 ahead of a March 2029 closure, as it exits businesses that made up about 5% of last year's group sales to fund a push toward IT, electronics and mobility materials.
Nippon Paper is closing its wholly owned Hungarian subsidiary that makes a lithium-ion battery chemical, booking a roughly ¥5bn impairment as it blames shifting European and US EV subsidies and rules for killing the plant's economics after local production began in 2025.
Nippon Shokubai now expects to spend about ¥43.0bn, up from ¥37.5bn, on its Kitakyushu LiFSI plant and to start commercial output in December 2028 instead of July 2028, citing delayed land purchase and higher copper, petroleum and construction costs, while the government's ¥12.5bn subsidy commitment holds steady.
Chemipro Kasei has cut its year-to-March-2027 ordinary-profit margin target to 2.4% from 5% or higher and its ROE goal to 3.2% from 7% or higher, citing a naphtha price spike tied to the Strait of Hormuz blockade.
Furukawa Electric will spend roughly ¥100bn in the US, Brazil, Japan and India to nearly double its rollable ribbon-cable capacity for hyperscale data centers, with customer purchase commitments already in hand but revenue and profit impact not showing up until production ramps from late 2028.
Daio Paper is dissolving both its Indonesian diaper trading and manufacturing units after sales at the sales arm collapsed to 6.1 billion rupiah and losses widened across both entities, closing out a market entry the company made in 2013 on the strength of Indonesia's birth rate.
The Japanese producer will fund the plant build-out itself under a 10-year deal with Select Water Solutions, aiming to establish a new US iodine supply source and reach about 3,000 tonnes a year from the project by 2030.
Management says ROE in the year to March 2026 was 6.87% against a PBR of 0.80x, above its rough 6% equity-cost estimate but still short of its 8% goal. The company is prioritising investment over a cosmetic fix, targeting operating profit of ¥2.4bn and net profit of ¥1.6bn by 2028 while saying ROE is only expected to improve to 7.6% during the current plan.