Kyodo Yushi Co. announced last week that it has finished building a synthetic grease plant in Kameyama city in Japans Mie prefecture. While the nations lubricant demand is slowly contracting, Kyodo Yushi said grease demand is rising thanks to the expanding automobile industry.
This new plant will meet an increase in demand for grease in automotive parts production, the company said in its press release. The plant covers an area of 2,239 square meters, officials said, but they did not disclose further details.
Photo: Kyodo Yushi
Kyodo Yushi’s new grease plant in Kameyama, Japan
In April, the company set up a joint venture sales company, Kyodo Yushi India Private Ltd., in Haryana province, India, to strengthen its marketing network so it can take advantage of Indias rapid economic growth.
Headquartered in Fujisawa, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, Kyodo Yushi produces automotive grease, mill grease, rolling bearing grease and grease for eletromechanical parts. It has two plants in western Japan – the recently completed one and another in Kasaoka, Okayama prefecture. It also operates four overseas plants in China, South Korea, Singapore and Indonesia.
Kyodo Yushi also produces metalworking fluids and machinery lubricants.Its plant in Tianjin, China, has capacity to make 335,000 tons per year of grease, 17,700 t/y of metalworking oils and 8,850 t/y of rolling oils.The company claims about 40 percent of Japans grease market and an 80-percent share of its market for hot rolling oils.
In the Asia-pacific region, Japan is the second-largest producer of grease with approximately 79,000 tons of grease produced in 2015, or 13 percent of regional output. China is the top grease producer in the region with 392,000 tons, or 64 percent of regional output, according to a recently published survey by the United States-based National Lubricating Grease Institute.