Sales show an increase of 6.8% in earnings, with operating profit up by 28.9% and ordinary profit up by 25.3% while net profit was up by 70.2%, making for a financial closing marked by an increase in earnings.

The Total Energy business, which is the main one, the Industrial gas and Welding business, as well as the Materials business all moved along with increases in earnings and profit. In addition, as special profit, there was the stock appraisal profit resulting from the selling off of A-Tec. Net profit greatly increased because Iwatani was able to record a profit of 1.6 billion yen from this. Allotments were up by 1 yen, totaling 7 yen.

The Industrial gas and Welding were up by 9.3% in earnings and 22.1% in profit. For industrial gas, oxygen, nitrogen, and argon for China and Southeast Asia moved along well. In Japan, helium and liquid hydrogen showed an increase, but the demand for gas in Japan, such as that for nitrogen and carbon dioxide, was sluggish, with sales of 74.231 billion yen, a drop of 1.1% in earnings. The ratio of sales of industrial gas accounted for by the overseas market came to 14%. For gas related facilities, the demand for use in power generation for the damaged area from the earthquake, and the overseas demand due to large orders moved along well.

The Electronics and machinery businesses were down in terms of earnings by 14.4% due to the slump in the semiconductor sector but based on improvements related to profit operating profit was up by 140.5%. The Materials business showed an increase in earnings of 14.5%, with operating profit up by 61.2%. The Natural industry business was up by 14.5% in earnings but down by 5.8% in terms of profit.

Capital investment amounted to 14.964 billion yen, of which the general energy business accounted for 5.27 billion yen, while Industrial gas and Welding came to 5.24 billion yen.

The outlook for the next term calls for an increase in sales of 3.8%, in operating profit of 8%, earnings and in ordinary profit of 3.4%. Net profit, however, should be down by 8%. This is because the previous term gave rise to a special profit of 1 billion yen. Apart from this the term will result in an increase in both earnings and profit.

At the announcement of these figures, Iwatani president Akiji Makino stated, “If air separation gas plants are asked to help out regarding conservation of electricity, we will go along with this, but we would like the electric company to get to work at reopening the nuclear power plants as soon as possible to bring about a stable supply of electric power.”