Japan Smelters to Recover Nonferrous Metal Production in 2H F2009

Mitsui Mining & Smelting plans to increase zinc production by 7% to 115,000 tonnes for second half of fiscal 2009 ending March 2010 from the sane period of fiscal 2008. Toho Zinc plans 61,292 tonnes of zinc production as same as October 2008-March 2009. Zinc demand for galvanized steel sheet and rolled copper products is increasing and Mitsui Mining & Smelting’s production decreased in second half of fiscal 2008 when the firm renewed the facilities of a subsidiary. Japanese smelters announced the production plan of nonferrous metal for second half on Friday.

Mitsui Mining & Smelting and Toho Zinc increase the lead production for second half of fiscal 2009 from same period of fiscal 2008. Mitsui Mining & Smelting plans to increase the production by 9% to 29,000 tonnes. Toho Zinc increases the production by 9% to 42,000 tonnes. These firms increase the production when lead demand and price are increasing.

Furukawa plans 43,385 tonnes of copper production for second half of fiscal 2009, as same as second half of fiscal 2008. The production increases by 7% compared with first half of fiscal 2009 when the production increases at the join ventures. However, the production decreases by 10% for fiscal 2009 from fiscal 2008 as planned.

As to gold production for second half of fiscal 2009, Mitsui Mining & Smelting plans 7.5 tonnes as same as same period of fiscal 2008. Furukawa plans to increase the production to 2.4 times at 2.7 tonnes due to higher grade raw material.

Silver production of Toho Zinc is 142 tonnes for second half of fiscal 2009 as same as second half of fiscal 2008. Furukawa’s production stays at 15 tonnes and Mitsui Mining & Smelting decreases the production by 13% to 114.2 tonnes.