TAIWAN: Chain Yarn marks completion of plant

The company has invested NT USD 2.5 billion in total for a four-stage plan to build the new plant starting in July last year, after an old factory at the same venue was damaged by a fire three years ago, Chain Yarn chairman Huang Chen-yi said during the 25 Oct. 2013 celebration of the completion of construction.

The new plant, located in the Nangang Jhushan Industrial Park, can produce 10,500 tonnes of nylon 66 fibers a year and 19,500 tonnes of nylon 6 fibers annually, the company said.

The new plant means Chain Yarn’s production capacity of nylon 66 fibers has increased to 14,500 tonnes a year, Alex Yu, executive special assistant of the company, said, adding that nylon 66 fibers are sold to Everest Textile Co and Eclat Textile Co to make functional clothes and to Toung Loong Textile Manufacturing Co to make nylon 66 yarns.

The company’s capacity to make nylon 6 fibers also rose to 55,500 tonnes a year, Yu said.

Prices of nylon 66 fibers have averaged 15 percent to 25 % higher than nylon 6 fiber because of better resistance to heat and abrasion, Yu said.

“We chose our product-mix more carefully this year and did not take orders for products with a low profit margin,” Yu said. The company also suffered from losses last year because of low nylon prices and high prices for caprolactam (CPL), the material used to make nylon 6 fibers, but the prices for CPL are more stable this year, Yu said.

Source: Daily "Taipei Times", Taipei; 26 Oct 2013

(Syed Rashid Ali, Karachi, Pakistan)