Japan 8 Smelters Plan to Increase Copper Output by 3.3% in 2H

Japanese 8 major smelters plan to produce total 826,861 tonnes of electrolytic copper in the second half of fiscal 2007 ending March 2008 including duplicate production by their joint smelters, which will increase by 3.3% compared with the corresponding period of fiscal 2006. The 8 smelters’ electrolytic lead output is scheduled to decrease by 2.7% in 2H of fiscal 2007 from a year earlier while electrolytic zinc increase by 2.5%.Pan Pacific Copper, a smelting joint venture between Nippon Mining & Metals and Mitsui Mining & Smelting, will increase electrolytic copper output by 1.6% to 311,800 tonnes in 2H of fiscal 2007 compared with 2H of fiscal 2006. Sumitomo Metal Mining plans to increase its copper production by 17.7% in 2H of fiscal 2007 from a year earlier thanks to the completion of output capacity expansion at Toyo smelter. On the other hand, Mitsubishi Materials will decrease copper production by 1% and DOWA Holdings by 17.8% in 2H of fiscal 2007 from a year earlier. DOWA Holdings’ output will slow down due to the launch of a new recycling furnace at Kosaka smelter. Mitsubishi Materials plans to increase electrolytic lead output by 12.6% in 2H of fiscal 2007 compared with 2H of fiscal 2006 thanks to better collection of used lead batteries. However, used battery collection maintains still difficult for domestic smelters as total. Mitsui Mining & Smelting will decrease lead production by 3.2% in 2H of fiscal 2007 from a year earlier under the situation. Toho Zinc schedules to increase electrolytic zinc output by 4.6% in 2H of fiscal 2007 from a year earlier. Toho Zinc’s zinc output was impacted by productive trouble at Endeavour mine in Australia in 2H of fiscal 2006. Mitsui Mining & Smelting plans to increase zinc production by 3% and DOWA Holdings by 2.7% in 2H of fiscal 2007 from a year earlier.