Bobbie Lee,
See my post #18 for some details, but essentially it is the bundle size(in simple terms number of individual strands of fiber) when manufacturing carbon fiber. The larger the bundle, the more economical - however it comes at a great loss of performance. That's ok for some of the newer applications, just not all.
Also, you can't weave 50K product (otherwise known as large tow) into fabrics which are used to make parts. You can only use 50K where you will chop up the fiber into a molding compound or airbag ignitors or brakes or applications like drive shafts where strength is not critical, only stiffness.
IMO Zoltek's current stock price is a reflection of the fact that someone is selling Zoltek as the leader in carbon fiber technology and ZOLT will reign dominant in the future. People who don't know anything about the market have "heard from reliable sources" and then hype it to uninformed investors. Here's an example - do any of you know anything about the true leader in carbon fiber, Toray?
Here's some info:
Toray
Capacity (theoretical) 7.2 million pounds per year
Capacity (actual - estimated) 5.0 million pounds
Announced expansions - 8 million pounds per year (4 million in Japan in 1998 and 4 million in US in 1999 at a cost of $135MM)
Toray is the far-and-away leader in the carbon fiber market in terms of product performance, quality and variety. Talk to anybody who buys more than 200,000 pounds of fiber a year and you will hear that Toray is the best. Now that doesn't mean that I'd invest in Toray, but the claims about Zoltek as a leader don't hold any water.
Kind of rambling, but I hope it helps.
flyguy. |
