Sumitomo Osaka Cement Greatly Expands Zirconia Production Capacity - For Ferrule Use [2000.9.28] Chemical Industry Journal Page 13 Sumitomo Osaka Cement (SOC) greatly expands productive capacity for zirconia. SOC will increase annual production to 150 tons, or 1-and-a half times as much as before, by placing an order with outside suppliers for a part of production process. The intention of this is to meet sharp rise of demand for zirconia for ferrule. The company is going to draw up new investment plan in September having a plan to raise annual production capacity to 250 tons by autumn next year. As the supply-demand situation of zirconia is quite stringent now, SOC largely expand its production capacity to meet the active demand. Construction of new optical fiber cables to achieve mass data transmission is getting activated today as a result of widespread Internet. Consequently, demand for ferrule, indispensable connector for optical fiber, is rapidly expanding from last year starting from the US. Zirconia has characteristics such as excellent abrasion resistance and minimum loss of optical information which occurs when connectors are interconnected. For this reason, zirconia is used as a raw material for the ferrule which is a part of connectors and as a result of back-to-back production increase by ferrule makers, zirconia market is now in stringent situation. Sumitomo Osaka Cement is the next biggest manufacturer to TOSOH Corp. in high purity zirconia for ceramics. SOC's zirconia produced applying the company's unique technique to make ultrafine particles has high purity, easy-to-sinter characteristic and excellent heat stability and its 70% of product is provided for ferrule use. The production plant is at Kaizuka site (Nishikinaka-cho Kaizuka City Osaka Pref.). SOC raised its annual production capacity form former 60 tons to 100 tons this month to meet the expanding demand of the moment. Nevertheless, the amount of order accepted doubled compared with this spring making it impossible to deal with the order even after raising the capacity. Therefore, SOC will raise production capacity more 50 tons to 150 tons from October by placing an order with outside suppliers for a part of production process. The company also plans to raise annual production capacity to 250 tons by autumn next year to respond to the demand still expanding. SOC is currently shaping reinforcement plan considering construction of a new line at Kaizuka site or expansion of order with outside suppliers. They will finalize the plan in November and set out the reinforcement plan by the spring next year.