Toray Industries is to expand European production of its Torayca carbon fibre to meet forecast demand for composite materials. The company plans to build a further carbonization line with capacity of 800 tons per year of PAN-based carbon fibers at its subsidiary Société des Fibres de Carbone S.A. (SOFICAR) in Abidos, France. Together with an expansion of precursor production its Ehime plant, Japan, total investment in this project will be approximately ¥8 billion. The expansion, which is scheduled to start-up in August 2007, will increase production capacity at SOFICAR to 3,400 tons pa. As a result of this, and other expansions, Toray's global capacity in carbon fibre will rise to 13,900 tons a year in August 2007. Global demand for PAN-based carbon fibres is estimated at approximately 25,000 tons a year in 2005. This is expected to grow at a rate exceeding 10% a year, reaching 34,000 tons in 2008, said Toray. To meet this growth in demand, Toray, as a first step, has made a series of large-scale investments mainly in "thick
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| carbon fibres" (12,000 filaments as well as 24,000 filaments) widely used in primary structural elements for aircraft. These investments include new facilities at SOFICAR that started operation in October 2004 and facilities at CFA in the U.S.A. starting early next year followed by those at its Ehime plant expected to go into operation in early 2007. The latest expansion at SOFICAR is aimed at enhancing Toray's supply structure for secondary structural elements used in aircraft applications, whose demand is expected to surge mainly in Europe, and for "thin carbon fibre" (very fine carbon fibre made up of 3,000 or 6,000 single threads) for general industrial use. Toray has been supplying thin carbon fibre material as secondary structural elements (ex: flaps, spoilers in main wings, etc.) in aircraft applications some time. Demand for such materials have been steadily expanding buoyed by recent recovery of the production rate of the aircraft, said the company. At the same time, fabrics made of thin carbon fibres have been gaining new applications in industrial and sports applications. 
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