Mitsui, Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metals to Develop Rove River Mine

Mitsui Corporation, Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries announced on Thursday they decided the development of new mine site in Rove River, Australia with Rio Tinto, English material supplier. They will develop new mine site near existing mine site with the investment at about US$ 900 million or about 100 billion yen, and will start the operation with the production at 25 million tonnes per year in 2010. They renews the mine site due to decreased material output in existing mine site, which will get the production capacity at 32 million tonnes. They invest to associated facility such as crushing machine or the extension of railroad for 49 kilo meters in Mesa A Warramboo mine site, West Australia. New mine site has the deposit volume at 250 million tonnes, outputs at 25 million tonnes per year and can operate for 11 years. Existing Mesa J mine site decreased deposit volume and decreased the output compared with 2006 when the site output at 29 million tonnes. However, they will keep the output in the mine site around Rove River. Rio Tinto invests 53% of Rove River joint business, Mitsui Corporation invests 33%, Nippon Steel invests 10.5% and Sumitomo Metal Industries invests 3.5%. The joint business produced at 53 million tonnes in 2006 including West Angelus iron ore mine at 24 million tonnes per year.