Air Water Carbonic Inc. (President: Yoshio Shiomi) completed its New Kawasaki Plant in the premises of Kawasaki Plant of Tonen General Sekiyu which is the source supplier of raw material, and held a completion ceremony at the site followed by a plant tour on October 21.

The new plant in Kawasaki is to produce crude gas from off gas generated in oil refinery process, liquefied carbon dioxide and dry ice, with a production capacity of 330 tons per day of LCO2 and 140 tons per day of dry ice. There are also five LCO2 tanks having a capacity of 250 tons each (1250 tons in total) for a planned distribution to the users in the Metropolitan area and north of the Kanto district.

The domestic demand/supply situation of carbon dioxide and dry ice is critical all the time with a tightening trend with the decreasing supply volume of crude gas from the major sources like oil refineries or ammonia producers and under the influences of the integrated production.

It had been an inevitable issue for the industry to fit out and maintain a stable supply system in order to respond to the good circumstances of demand as seen in the new applications arisen for agricultural, food and medical uses. Particularly, the plants located in the Kawasaki and Chiba districts belonging to the Metropolitan area having the largest demand of Japan had been much expected to reinforce their supply capacity while they play the main role also to supply to the area north of the Kanto District. In this sense, great expectations are placed on the new Kawasaki Plant, which is a long-awaited plant.　

Yasuo Imai president of Air Water said, “The demand for carbon dioxide has recently been growing at a rapid pace thanks to the requirements in the medical field or greenhouse cultivation, and is now quite an inseparable gas from the industrial field and our daily life. We attempt to reinforce stable supply.”

In the meantime, AW Carbonic have been investing to new plants for these several years in accordance with the discontinuation of source suppliers. In March 2013 Sanyo Onoda Plant was established with Seibu Sekiyu as the supply source, and in November 2014 Muroran Plant was established with NSSMC Muroran as the supply source.