Mitsui & Co. to Expand Investment in Metals, Resources Assets

Mitsui & Co. expands investment in mineral resources and energy including metals in fiscal 2011 started April. The investment budget is 260 billion yen for mineral resources and energy, which is around 10% higher than fiscal 2010, while the firm eyes additional investment depending on opportunity for competitive assets. The firm expands and develops existing projects of iron ore, coal and other resources while the firm tries to get new assets including copper and nonferrous metals. The firm eyes new next generation sources including minerals in Africa. The firm tries to expand the supply ability resources through combination of investment and marketing leveraged by business engineering capability under increasing demand especially in rapid growing emerging countries.

The firm tries to expand non-resource business to reduce dependence on resource business when the profit from global mineral resources and energy business represented more than 80% of total profit. The senior executive managing officer Fuminobu Kawashima said the firm keeps expanding resource business through aggressive investment while the firm tries to increase the non-resource profit to 50% level of the company by increasing profit both from resource and non-resource areas in 5-10 years.

Mr. Kawashima said 260 billion yen of the investment budget for mineral resources and energy in fiscal 2011 is mainly for ongoing development projects and expansion of existing projects. The firm tries to realize new investment in metals including iron ore, copper, aluminium, nickel, manganese, chrome and rare metals. With the new investment, the annual investment would be higher than the budget.

The firm increases the captive coal production from 9 million tonnes in fiscal 2011 to 12 million tonnes in fiscal 2013 through expansion at existing mines in Australia. Mr. Kawashima said the firm tries to expand the upper stream assets of coking coal and thermal coal by investing in new competitive assets including projects in Mongolia, Russia and Africa.

The firm increased the investment in mineral resources and energy by 60% to 230 billion yen in fiscal 2010 from fiscal 2009 mainly for expansion of iron ore and coal projects, acquisition of interest in Chilean Caserones copper mine and interests in energy projects. The firm tries to contribute to steel industry and other customers mainly in Japan by securing competitive resource assets under tight supply of the resource with strong demand in emerging countries.