Japan’s Nippon Oil starts trials at China LCD film plant

28 September 2004 07:20  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (CNI)--Nippon Oil LC Film (Suzhou), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan’s Nippon Oil Corp (NOC), has completed the construction of a new liquid crystal display (LCD) film plant in Suzhou, China, and is currently conducting trial runs, CNI was told on Tuesday.

 

Work on the plant, which has an annual production capacity of approximately 1.2m square metres, was started in May 2003. Trial production started in August, while commercial production is scheduled to start from February 2005.

A company spokesman said the plant was needed because its Tatsuno plant, which is located in Japan's Nagano Prefecture, has been running at almost its full capacity of about 1.2m square metre/year for several years.

Demand for the films had been growing more rapidly than had been expected due to the rapid growth of the cellular phone market and the worldwide shift to colour LCDs instead of monochrome displays.

China has become the largest production centre for cellular phones in the world. So, the new plant in Suzhou could be used to provide just-in-time deliveries to customers in the Suzhou and Shanghai districts, he said.

The completion of the Suzhou plant doubles the NOC group’s annual LCD film production capacity to 2.4m square metre.

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