Not Chigasaki [Toho] , possibly Amagasaki
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-18/osaka-titanium-searches-globe-for-ore-supply-as-cost-surges.html
Osaka Titanium Technologies Co. (5726), the world’s second-largest producer of titanium sponge, is considering buying a stake in a mine or securing a new ore supply deal as demand for its product gains.
“Raw material costs are a rising problem for us,” President Shozo Nishizawa said in an interview in Tokyo. “I’m studying schemes we could use to secure titanium ore.”
The Amagasaki-based company secured significant increases in annual export prices for 2012 as costs jumped, he said, declining to elaborate, citing an industry policy. It will take at least two or three years for Osaka Titanium’s margins to improve as supply tightens, Nomura Securities Co. said in a Nov. 14 report.
Average prices of titanium ore have climbed as much 70 percent in the year beginning April 1 and may increase next year as supply fails to keep pace with demand, Nishizawa said. Osaka Titanium and its bigger Russian rival OAO VSMPO-Avisma compete with pigment makers to buy the ore.
The company wants to buy stakes in mines or sign long-term supply agreements with owners of projects in Africa and South America where development projects are under way, Nishizawa said. As a minority user of titanium ore, it isn’t easy to find new supplies of high-quality ore, he added.
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