Toray has built additional production lines in factories in the United States and South Korea, and plans to increase the production capacity of conventional carbon fiber tow by more than 20%. On July 13, 2023, Japan's Toray Industries Co., Ltd. announced on its official website that it plans to increase the production capacity of carbon fiber conventional tow (small tow: 1-24K) at the two factories. The capital investment will add production lines to its Spartanburg, South Carolina, U.S. plant and Gumi plant in North Gyeongsang, South Korea. The investments will boost the Toray Group's annual production capacity by more than 20 percent to 35,000 tonnes starting in 2025.
The medium and long-term logic of civil carbon fiber is to exchange "price" for "demand". The inventory rose month-on-month, and the market price was temporarily stable: the average price of carbon fiber market this weekend was 119,000/ton (the same month-on-month, -6.3 year-on-year), and the average price of large tow was 98,000 yuan/ton (the same month-on-month, -4.6 year-on-year). The average price of tow was 140,000 yuan/ton (flat month-on-month, -8.0 year-on-year), carbon fiber factory inventory was 8,870 tons (+450 month-on-month, +8020 year-on-year), and the price of raw material acrylonitrile dropped slightly.