Heat exchanger plant construction in Thailand

Nippon Light Metal Co., Ltd., (President Takashi Ishiyama; Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; hereafter "Nikkeikin") announced that it will construct a plant for heat exchangers for room air conditioners on a site (owned area of approx. 84,000 m2) in Amata Nakorn Industrial Estate, Chon Buri Prefecture, Thailand, owned by our group company and will start shipments in October this year as follows:

1. Aim of plant construction in Thailand


Nikkei Heat Exchanger Co., Ltd., (President Shin'ichi Shinohara; Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture), a joint venture between Nikkeikin and Modine Manufacturing Company, USA, is mainly promoting the heat exchanger manufacturing project of the NLM Group, and manufactures and sells heat exchangers for automotive use. The project is one of core businesses for the automotive markets that is positioned as the strategic market of the NLM Group. The midterm management plan of the NLM Group determines four markets of automobiles; machinery and electronic materials; information and telecommunications; and environment, safety, and energy as the strategic markets to preferentially distribute the management resources to the businesses related to these areas. It is predicted that the demand of room air conditioners for home use will significantly increase in the environment, safety, and energy market of developing countries, including BRICs where the economy is growing rapidly. Thus Japanese room air conditioner manufacturers are mainly advancing into Southeast Asia and manufacturing on the site.


On the other hand, as for heat exchangers, key components of air conditioners, requirements for saving energy, and higher efficiency are increasing more and more. However, conventional type heat exchangers using copper tubes have almost no allowance for technical improvement and have problems, such as the steep rise in copper prices and exhaustion of resources.


In this situation, Nikkeikin was given by Nikkei Heat Exchanger Co., Ltd., the energy saving and efficiency improvement technology that were acquired by that company through the business of all aluminum heat exchangers for automotive use and started the business of all aluminum parallel flow heat exchangers for room air conditioners (PFC) for home use to plan to expand the business in Southeast Asia where the demand is considered to hereafter increase significantly.


At present, the production plant is under construction in Thailand, the center of the Southeast Asian regional economy, where many Japanese origin room air conditioner manufacturers are accumulated because the site is close to the final consumption area.


NLM Group intends to strengthen competitiveness in the field of heat exchanger business by the construction of the heat exchanger manufacturing plant this time in Thailand and to aim for further growth utilizing this business as a core project of our group companies.


2. Outline of Thailand plant

1. Planned Thailand Plant for manufacturing heat exchangers

2. Parallel flow heat exchangers for room air conditioners (PFC)

Inquiry for release: Publicity and IR section, Nippon Light Metal Co., Ltd. TEL: +81-3-5461-9333