Sojitz Corp to Expand Mineral Resource Investment

Sojitz Corporation’s mineral resources unit expands the business through 60 billion yen of investment through fiscal 2008 ending March 2009. The unit plans iron ore development in Australia and coal interests purchase in Australia and Indonesia along with expansion for alumina business in Australia. The unit also expands rare metal business and tries to acquire interest for base metals. Through the investment, the unit targets more than 15 billion yen of recurring profit even when resources price experiences major drop.The unit increases the investment to 22 billion yen for fiscal 2007 compared with 8 billion yen in fiscal 2006. The unit already acquired Primary Metals of Canada, which has tungsten mine in Portugal, and Australian coal interest in the year. The unit expects the investment could increase to 30 billion yen for fiscal 2008 compared with 50 billion yen of original plan for 3 years to fiscal 2008.The unit finishes feasibility study for integrated iron ore supply projects including mine development in Australia and pellet plant in Malaysia starting the supply in 2010. The unit is also finishing expansion study at Endako molybdenum mine in Canada, in which the unit has 25% interest, to increase the output to 1.6 times at 16 million pound par year.The unit revised the full year outlook upward to 17.5 billion yen of recurring profit for fiscal 2007, which is 9% higher than fiscal 2006 and 35% higher than original plan for fiscal 2007.