Sumitomo Metal Mining to Expand Metal Operations at Home & Abroad

Sumitomo Metal Mining tries to ramp up major 4 resources and metal projects to full capacity in fiscal 2007 starting April 2007. The firm expands the copper smelting capacity to annual 410,000 tonnes at Toyo plant in Ehime after the regular repair while the firm starts all 4 lines to transport ore to beneficiation plants at Cerro Verde mine, in which the firm has 17% interests, in January-March after the test run in November. The firm expects the Coral Bay Nickel of Philippine and Pogo gold mine in Alaska will reach full capacity operation in fiscal 2007. The firm plans to produce 372,000 tonnes of electrolytic copper at Toyo plant in fiscal 2006 after expansion to annual 360,000 tonnes in fiscal 2005. The firm adds an oxygen plant to the plant during the maintenance from October 30 to November 27 to increase the capacity to 410,000 tonnes. The firm eyes additional expansion to 450,000 tonnes after fiscal 2007.The firm acquired 16.8% interest in Cerro Verde mine, which Phelps Dodge operates, in March 2005. Sumitomo Metal Mining can purchase annual 90,000 tonnes of concentrates, which represents 50% of the output, for the first 10 years. The mine launches 2 transportation lines for the test in the month and starts another 2 lines in January-March 2007. The firm expects the concentrate from Cerro Verde arrives at Toyo plant in April-June. Coral Bay, which started commercial operation in April 2005, is the first offshore smelting venture for the firm. The output reached full capacity of annualized 10,000 tonnes in November 2005 temporally. However, the output will be 8,000 tonnes in 2006, which is 20% lower than the capacity due to the lower grade of ore. The project is expected to reach full capacity in fiscal 2007. Pogo gold mine, which is the first offshore majority owned project for Sumitomo Metal Mining, stopped the operation temporally due to power supply trouble. The firm expects the ore processing facilities will restart the operation in the end of the year though the mine already started the some of underground mining in the end of October. Sumitomo Metal Mining expects the gold output could reach full capacity in fiscal 2007 though the output cannot reach annual 12 tonnes level in January-March as original schedule.