KASHIMA, Japan (April 7, 2011)—JSR Corp. has said it is bringing forward plans to partially re-start production at its Kashima plant and now hopes to have some production by mid-April. Production of ethylene propylene rubber is unlikely to start by that date.
Operations at the Kashima plant have been stopped since the March 11 earthquake. JSR has completed a physical inspection and has begun preparations for a partial-restart.
JSR said supplies of some utilities, such as steam, are expected to resume operation in a few days.
The company said in regards to EP rubber, which had a tight demand and supply balance even before the earthquake happened, it had no prospect of securing the raw materials required for production at this moment.
JSR said manufacturing facilities at the Chiba plant are under normal operations as previously reported. The firm said it expects the production of performance chemicals will be back to normal conditions in late April after this process had been slowed down because of supply limitations of raw materials.