Mitsui Mining & Smelting to Reorganize Cu Foil Production Network

Mitsui Mining & Smelting tries to reshuffle production network of electrolytic copper foil at home and abroad for better profitability. The firm allocates Ageo plant in Saitama into high valued ultra thin foil with carrier under higher cost for electricity and high yen rate. The firm shifts other products to Malaysian and Taiwanese plants step by step. The firm also improves competitiveness for the offshore plant to compete in commodity grade market.

The firm has leading position in world market for ultra thin foil with carrier for small devices and the firm expects the demand will grow by more than 20% per year for smart phone. The firm expanded the Ageo plant’s production capacity to monthly 1 million square meters for the thin products but the current operation rate is apparently 70-80%.

The president Sadao Senda said at briefing on Monday the Ageo plant tries to operate at full capacity for the thin products. He said the firm tries to revise the production network between Ageo, Taiwan and Malaysia for optimization.

The firm already started the production shift of other products from Ageo to offshore plants in past 6 months. The higher valued products line would improve profitability of the offshore plant when the offshore plants suffer from slow market for commodity grade products.