Mitsubishi Materials to Invest 50B Yen for Copper Sources in 3-Year

Mitsubishi Materials plans around 50 billion yen for copper resources investment in 3 years through fiscal 2009 ending March 2010. The firm tries to purchase interests in existing mines and exploration projects. The firm could expand the investment depending on the projects. With the investment, the firm targets 75% of procurement from mines with interests compared with 65% now. The firm has 1% interest in Escondida mine of Chile, 10% in Los Pelambres of Chile, 2.5% in Batu Hijau mine of Indonesia and 31.25% in Huckleberry mine of Canada. The firm procuress ore with near 200,000 tonnes of copper from those mines when the firm consumes ore with around 300,000 tonnes of copper in the copper smelting operations at Kagawa and Fukushima. The firm tries to increase the captive source when the miners seek more profit by reducing processing charge of smelters under strong copper ore demand when Chinese smelters expand the capacity. The firm tries to acquire majority in copper mine with less than 100,000 tonnes of copper output while the firm would have minor share in major mine with more than 200,000 tonnes of annual copper output. The firm also spends annual 500 million yen for copper exploration to secure new resources.