Japanese-German pre-WWII industrial co-operation
In the years leading up to the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939, there were some significant collaborative development in heavy industry between German companies and their Japanese counterparts. This was one major factor in Japan's ability quickly to exploit raw materials in the areas of the Empire of Japan that had recently come under their military control.
Lurgi group plants
Nippon Lurgi Goshi KK was a Japanese company of the period involved in Japanese-German cooperation. The Lurgi AG German industrial group was a partner, and it was the was the Lurgi office in Tokyo. The Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee of the United States and United Kingdom later investigated it.
At the beginning of 1942 the Japanese acquired all the low temperature carbonization patents of Lurgi for Japan, Manchuria and North China. The agreement gave the Japanese the right to construct plants and an exclusive utilization of patents. A flat payment of approximately 800,000 Reichmarks, was received from the Japanese, this sum being cleared through the German government. One of the aims was synthetic oil. For example the South Sakhalin Mining and Railway Company plant at Naihoro/Oichai in Karafuto perhaps motivated the licensing: the southern Karafuto brown coal brown coal with a content of paraffin tar (about 15%), and low water content, was suitable for hydrogenation.
Mitsui Kosan KK Miiki (Ohmura) operated from about 1939. Lurgi AG installed an activated carbon plant to operate with the Fischer-Tropsch plant. Coke and water gas were produced, the coke ovens being built by Koppers.
The shale plant at Fushun (or Japanese Bujum), Manchuria was perhaps capable of annual production of 200,000 tons of shale oil. The Imperial Japanese Navy also had an interest there in producing some diesel oil and gasoline, in low amounts.
The Manshu Gosei Nenryo plant of Chinchow (Kinshu), known also as Fushin( Fusin or Japanese Bujim) was a Fischer-Tropsch plant producing about 30,000 tons per year, online from about 1940.
Near Beijing, in Hopei, the Kalgari Factory was to develop the local bituminous coal available at Kalgari. It could be used also for the Mengchiang coal of the Chahar-Suiyuan mines.
A planned gasification plant at Rumoe in Hokkaido was apparently not built.
Chosen Sekitan KK, at Eian was a small low temperature carbonization plant which was processed about 600 tons of coal per day. This plant yielded from 15,000 to 20,000 tons per annum of coal tar.
With Koppers
Ube Yuka Kogya KK (no.2), at Ube was a low temperature carbonization plant, with a synthetic ammonia plant. This was a collaboration with Heinrich Koppers AG of Essen.
External links
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