Teijin Group’s carbon fibre business Toho Tenax has announced that its German subsidiary, Toho Tenax Europe GmbH, started full-scale operation of its fourth carbon fibre production line at its Oberbruch plant this month, following initial start-up in September.

The 1700 ton capacity Line 4 was completed in August 2009, but as a result of declining demand for carbon fibre due to the economic downturn since the autumn of 2008, the line’s originally scheduled start-up was postponed as part of adjustments to the Toho Tenax group’s global production in Japan, Germany and the United States.

With demand increasing this year, particularly for aircraft, sports, leisure and industrial applications such as wind power generation, Toho Tenax decided to begin operating the new line to optimize global production.

Toho Tenax expects carbon fiber global market sales, which had decreased to about 23,000 tons in 2009, to increase about 15% annually from this year. The company also intends to further optimize production in Japan, Germany and the United States to meet growing demand.