Mitsui & Co., Sojitz Join to Double Coral Bay Nickel Project

Mitsui & Co. and Sojitz decided to join second phase of Sumitomo Metal Mining leading Coral Bay Nickel smelter project in Philippine. The 2 trading firms have 18% interest each in the project as the first phase. They try to expand the captive metals and resources by expanding investment to existing and new project when trading firms increase the resource investment under surging metals prices. Coral Bay nickel project started the production in April 2005. Sumitomo Metal Mining builds second plant next to existing plant with high pressure acid leach (HPAL) process to expand the own nickel metal. They start the building works in March for the US$ 285 million project to start operation in April 2009. With the second plant, the project is to double the output capacity to annual 20,000 tonnes of nickel and 1,400 tonnes of cobalt. Sumitomo Metal Mining controls 54% of the project with 587.5 million peso of capital with 18% share by Mitsui & Co., by 18% by Sojitz and 10% by Rio Tuba Nickel Mining Corporation. The joint venture with annual 10,000 tonnes of nickel and 700 tonnes of cobalt output capacity started the operation at annual 7,000 tonnes of nickel production rate.