Dow Chemical Japan is raising the prices of solvents and amines effective for deliveries from today. The price increase applies to ethanolamine, ethylene amine, and ethylene glycol ether solvents, and will be 15 yen ($0.11) per kilogram. The company states that the price increase was decided in order to maintain supply to Japanese domestic customers amid a tightening global supply-demand...
Materials
Shin-Etsu Chemical to Invest 100 Billion Yen in Silicone Portfolio
Shin-Etsu Chemical will invest 100 billion yen ($701.8 million) in its silicone portfolio, one of the mainstays of its Performance Materials segment. In February 2022, the company announced an investment plan worth 80 billion yen to meet strong customer demand for high-performance silicone products. Although the company has completed its investments under this plan, it will continue to invest in...

Lanxess Opens Kawasaki Technical Center
Lanxess has in July opened the Kawasaki Technical Center at the Kawasaki Science Park in Kanagawa Prefecture. The center has been established to provide high quality technical services to customers in Japan. It is equipped with advanced testing capabilities and can serve a wide range of industries, from personal care products to industrial applications, by offering comprehensive microbiological testing. Lanxess,...
Zeon Posts Q1 Results, Sees Declines in Sales and Profit
Zeon reported a 5.8% year-on-year decline in net sales to 91.9 billion yen ($648.9 million), a 43.0% drop in operating income to 6.1 billion yen, a 35.8% drop in ordinary income to 8.3 billion yen, and a 33.0% drop in net income to 5.8 billion yen for the first quarter of the year ending March 2024. In the elastomer materials...

Ube to Expand Silicon Nitride Production on Surging EV Demand
Ube will expand its silicon nitride production facility at its Ube Chemical Factory to meet a sharp increase in demand, especially for bearings and substrates for electric vehicles (EV). The company’s silicon nitride is a high-grade powder produced using a proprietary imide thermal decomposition method. It is characterized by uniform grain size and low impurity content, and its fine structure...
Asahi Kasei’s Synthetic Rubber Business Misses Plan on Lower SSBR and BR Demand
Asahi Kasei’s synthetic rubber business fell short of its plan in terms of volume for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. Demand for both solution-polymerized styrene-butadiene rubber (SSBR), mainly for tire applications, and butadiene rubber (BR), mainly for non-tire and resin modification applications, declined in the second half. “All regions performed worse than expected. The rise in raw material...