The delivery of medium-sized seamless cylinders (capacity of 30 to 150ℓ) from April to November 2017 substantially increased by 17% from the same term of last year. The demand is expected to expand further the end of fiscal year.

In terms of throughout the year, it seems to reach 90 thousand cylinders for the first time in four years since 2013.

The market component of the cylinder is 60% for industrial use and 40% for gas fire extinguishing equipment. As for the industrial use, it seems gas distributor’s appetite for investment is getting upward with the background of the good condition of the major industries like automobile, shipbuilding and construction fields, and there seem to be many cases of increased requirements to purchase cylinders or movements to new investments for the first time in several years.

In terms of type of gas, they say that the shortage of CO2 gas cylinder is noticeable. The cylinder manufacturers guess that it might have been affected by the booming demand for welding and agricultural farms. It seems that there still remains the special demand for the stainless cylinders which have come up since the autumn of 2016.

Regarding the gas fire extinguishing equipment, the biggest topic is the demand for replacement of cylinders in connection with the inspection of cylinder valves. It is necessary to check or renew after 30 years of installation the valves of gas storing containers of gas fire extinguishing equipment in use of halon or nitrogen excluding CO2.
　



The deadline of inspection for the equipment before 1988 is drawing near to fall on March of this year. It is connected to the creation of demand for the tentative storage and preparation of containers for replacement during inspection.

On the other hand, new enquiries are coming gradually mainly in the metropolitan area. Although the redevelopment boom now heads downward again, the construction of Tokyo Olympic stadiums and hotels are proceeding in full scale now and the construction of data center is also on the way. It is expected that the delivery of nitrogen fire extinguishing systems will mainly be accelerated soon.

In line with the construction/expansion of new plants, more dangerous goods warehouses are being provided and there seem to be enquiries for CO2 fire extinguishing equipment which are installed where little access of people will be expected.

In order to cope with rapidly increasing orders, Koatsu-Showa Cylinders and Benkan Kikoh of cylinder manufacturers are planning to upgrade their production efficiency. Both companies tackling to update the aged equipment since last year are said to keep investing in their facilities also this year.