Kobe Steel to invest in plant expansion at Kobelco Industrial Machinery India (KIMI)

Jun. 27, 2025

Kobe Steel, Ltd.

Kobe Steel announces that it has decided to invest in the expansion of a plant at Kobelco Industrial Machinery India (KIMI), a production base of the Kobe Steel Machinery Business division. The expansion is projected to be completed in fiscal 2027, with an estimated total investment of about 3 billion yen.

Established In 2010, L&T Kobelco Machinery Private Limited (LTKM) began as a joint venture (49% share held by Kobe Steel) with Larsen & Toubro (L&T), India's largest construction engineering company that also handles industrial machinery. In 2019, the Company turned LTKM into a wholly owned subsidiary and changed its name to Kobelco Industrial Machinery India (KIMI). Since then, KIMI has steadily expanded its business as a manufacturing and sales base for tire and rubber machinery (rubber mixers and rubber extruders^*1) in India and the surrounding area. In recent years, demand for tire and rubber machinery has been increasing particularly in India owing to the rising automotive production. This expansion investment aims to enhance production capacity and promote business growth.

Alongside the plant expansion, new production facilities for non-standard compressors^*2 will be installed at KIMI. This will allow the Company to strengthen its business by expanding into India the production of non-standard compressors, which are currently manufactured in Japan, the United States, China, and South Korea, diversifying its production bases toward market expansion and cost competitiveness enhancement in sectors related to future energy transitions, advancing into the Middle Eastern and African markets including India, and mitigating country-specific risks that have become increasingly evident in recent years.

In addition, prior to this investment decision, the Kobelco Machinery Global Capability Center, Chennai (KMGC, Chennai) was established as the KIMI Chennai branch in January 2025 to commence design and development operations focusing on tire and rubber machinery and non-standard compressors.

By fully leveraging these resources, the Company’s machinery business will further increase its presence in the global market and expand the business with a new foothold in India, while striving to provide greater customer satisfaction.

About KOBELCO-X

The Kobe Steel Group (also known as the Kobelco Group) is working on the transformation into an appealing company, as set out in its Medium-Term Management Plan (Fiscal 2024–2026). As part of this effort, we are advancing an initiative called KOBELCO-X^*3, which spans a wide range of transformations. This investment in plant expansion is linked to AX (ambidexterity), since it contributes to both enhancing earning power and pursuing growth.

The Group will continue to provide solutions to the needs of society by promoting the integrated use of its diverse businesses, technologies, and human resources in a unique way and move forward with its transformation initiatives in order to become a more appealing company to all of its stakeholders with a view to a world in which people, now and in the future, can fulfill their hopes and dreams while enjoying safe, secure, and prosperous lives.

1. *1A rubber mixer is a machine that mixes and kneads raw materials such as rubber, carbon, sulfur, chemicals, and oils, whereas a rubber extruder is a machine that processes the mixed mass of rubber and other raw materials into sheets. The former is installed at the beginning of the upstream process of tire or rubber product manufacturing, while the latter is installed downstream, following the rubber mixing process.
2. *2Non-standard compressors are machines that provide compressed air or gas for a wide range of purposes, including the use in power plants and chemical plants.
3. *3KOBELCO-X reference material:
4. Our Group’s Transformation Initiatives[PDF:7.88MB]

Photo 1: Tire and rubber machinery

Photo 2: Non-standard compressors