Japan’s Tokai Carbon Books Dramatic Rise in its Graphite Electrodes Sales in Q3 CY18

Tokai Carbon which manufactures wide range of carbon materials is one of the major graphite electrodes (GE) producers with its GE plants located in Japan, Germany and U.S. with the capacity of 96,000 tonnes.

The company has released its third-quarter numbers for the current year 2018 and while its overall sales have increased by 107% y-o-y basis to 155,385 million yen, its operating income has been registered at 51,975 million yen, an increase of more than 500% against corresponding quarter of previous year.

The company’s GE sales in Q3 CY18 stood at 29,139 million yen against 23,121 million yen in Q2 CY18 and 5,247 million yen in Q3 of the previous year 2017. In the first nine months of 2018 (Jan-Sep) were recorded at 69,239 million yen, an increase of more than 300% y-o-y basis whereas operating income rose significantly to 38,602 million yen.

It has been observed that in first three quarters of 2018, GE became the highest revenue generating segment for Tokai Carbon against the corresponding period of last year in which highest revenues were contributed by Carbon black segment.

The company’s quarterly report has mentioned that the global supplies of graphite electrodes remained tight and the company continued operating at full capacity. In addition, because the new North American business unit added last November, coupled with the global market for graphite electrodes growth, contributed to consolidated performance, both net sales and operating income from GE segment increased considerably year on year.

Under Phase 2 of the three-year mid-term management plan (T-2018) released in February 2017, Tokai Carbon is now shifting its focus to the growth strategy. By utilizing a strategic investment budget of approx. 50 billion yen, set for M&As and other purposes in accordance with the growth strategy, Tokai Carbon acquired shares in SGL’s U.S. subsidiary operating the graphite electrode business in November 2017 and converted Tokai Carbon Korea Co., Ltd. into a consolidated subsidiary in May 2018, and the acquisition of Sid Richardson Carbon and its affiliate companies are part of such strategic investment.