June 19, 2007 -- Nippon Carbon Co. will begin mass-producing large 32-inch graphite electrodes for electric furnaces starting in 2008. Before the company ships graphite electrodes from its Toyama plant, the products are inspected and the surfaces cut to adjust the dimensions. The plant has a machine to perform this procedure on electrodes up to 30 inches, but the dimensional processing is now conducted by hand for the 32-inch graphite versions.
Nippon Carbon will invest 1 billion yen (US$8.1 million) to mechanize the process for these larger electrodes as well, and in doing so will increase its production capacity more than 10-fold to some 100-200 32-inch graphite electrodes a month. The firm anticipates growing demand for these large electrodes as manufacturers shift to producing electric furnaces that can melt scrap metal more efficiently.
Source: Asia Pulse
Source: Factiva
