Sumitomo Mining seeks more control over copper flow
Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd said it plans to take a stake in at least one copper mine in the year starting in April, in line with a strategy to take more control over the source of its ore.
Sumitomo Metal Mining, Japan’s top nickel and second largest copper producer and an aggressive investor in overseas resources, currently extracts 40 percent of its copper from its own mines and purchases the rest from outside sources, including BHP Billiton.
The company aims to boost that to 70 percent by the year ending in March 2014.
“We aim to take a stake in at least one profitable copper mine in the next business year,” Shigeru Takeuchi, Sumitomo Metal Mining’s general manager, told a strategy briefing.
While global resources giants like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are scaling back nickel and copper production or delaying development projects, Sumitomo Metal Mining has no plan to change its expansion programmes, he said.
The company’s second nickel production line and an expanded refinery plant in the Philippines will start up later this year as planned, Takeuchi said.
Sumitomo Metal Mining is Japan’s top top nickel producer.
The company last month slashed its net profit outlook for the year to March 2009 to 19 billion yen ($200 million) from 70 billion yen, citing plunging metal prices, a high yen and a collapse in demand for electronics materials.
Shares in Sumitomo Metal Mining, also a big industrial-use gold producer, ended Monday trade at 1,090 yen, up 6.5 percent.
The stock has been given a boost as gold topped the psychologically important $1,000 per ounce level late last week when nervous investors picked up the metal amid tumbling stock markets.
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