Thai-Asahi Glass Plc. has signed a 700 million baht contract to buy natural gas from the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) which will be used as fuel to produce float glass.
The contract was sign…
Thai-Asahi Glass Plc. has signed a 700 million baht contract to buy natural gas from the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) which will be used as fuel to produce float glass. The contract was signed by Chaikiri Srifuengfung, managing director of Thai-Asahi Glass Plc, and Dr. Piti Yimprasert, president of PTT Gas Co. Under the five-year contract, PTT will start to supply about three million cubic feet of gas per day or about 140 million baht a year to Thai-Asahi Glass in June 1997. The gas supply will replace oil which is used as fuel for the company“s new glass plant in Amata City Industrial Estate, Rayong, its second float glass plant. The new 3 billion baht glass plant is set to produce glass sheets with a capacity of 182,500 tonnes per year, which will push the total capacity to over 300,000 tonnes per year, the country“s largest glass production capacity. The plant will enable the company to satisfy demand in foreign markets such as Burma, Laos and India, and Thai-Asahi is confident of establishing itself as Southeast Asia“s number two glass producer. Mr. Chaikiri sees more aggressive competition in the glass market starting by 1997 when more varieties of glass products will be launched. The industry shows annual growth of about 8.5%, a similar growth to Thai-Asahi Glass Plc. The company planned to increase annual production from 3.9 million cases of glass sheets to 7.2 million cases, against a national total of 19 million cases. An executive director of Thai-Asahi, Vitoon Tejatussanasoontorn, said his company has placed more emphasis on producing automobile safety glass after a government policy to urge the country to produce such a product. Car safety-glass produced by his company has about an 87% market share to accommodate up to 400,000 cars. Expansion during the next two years is expected to use about 1.6 billion baht investment to allow the firm to accommodate 700,000 cars. Thai Asahi Glass currently operates only one plant in Samut Prakan with an annual production capacity of 164,250 tonnes.