IOC Eyes 21 Million Tonnes of Iron Ore Output Capacity

Iron Ore Company of Canada, which is joint venture of Rio Tinto and Mitsubishi Corporation, announced on Wednesday the firm expands the iron ore concentrate output capacity by 900,000 tonnes to 18.4 million tonnes by mid-2008. The expansion is the first step for additional expansion to 21 million tonnes. The firm tries to start the second step as early as second half of 2008 after the feasibility study. Rio Tinto and Mitsubishi Corp. expend for the C$ 60 million for the first step depending on the interests in IOC, which Rio Tinto controls 58.72% with 26.18% share by Mitsubishi Corp. The first step is to clear bottleneck in the processes through expansion of treatment facilities and rail transport capacity to improve the productivity. Mitsubishi Corp. tries to expand the iron ore interests from current 7 million tonnes per year to more than 20 million tonnes by 2015. The firm tries to develop new mine in Western Australia with 20 million tonnes of annual output and expand the existing operations including IOC and Chilean operation while the firm seeks new resources in Canada and Guinea.