Sojitz to Invest 20 Billion Yen for Minerals

Sojitz Corporation’s mineral resources unit will invest more than 20 billion yen for coal and mineral equity in second half of fiscal 2009 ending March 2010. The unit eyes investment for pending coking coal assents while the unit tries to get interests for steam coal, copper and rare metals. The unit tries to improve the profitability including higher trading activity for growing Chinese and Indian market through higher competitive mineral assets. The unit targets more than 20 billion yen of recurring profit in 2013, which represents almost double of current estimated profit for fiscal 2009.

The firm’s equity coal annual production is just more than 4 million tonnes when the firm sold share in Coal & Allied of Australia while the interest holding Lake Vermont coking coal mine in Australia started the operation in February. The equity coal is lower than 5.5 million tonnes as of March but the unit tries to get new competitive coal assets by utilizing the profit from disposal of Coal & Allied.

The interest holding Moolarben coal mine in Australia will start the operation in 2010. The unit tries to expand the coal equity through new investment for competitive assets especially for coking coal when China turned into net coal importer. The unit targets annual 10 million tonnes level of coal assets in 2012.

The unit tries to get equity manganese metal assets for long term stable supply to steel industry. The unit tries to expand the resource menu for steel industry when steel industry keeps growing mainly in developing countries.

The unit posted 20 billion yen of profit before tax for first half of fiscal 2009 including gain from disposal of Coal & Allied. The firm tries to post 11 billion yen of recurring profit for fiscal 2009 while the mineral market condition is uncertain in January-March.