Mitsui Mining & Smelting to Expand Precious Metal Recycling

Mitsui Mining & Smelting will increase the collection volume of precious metal scrap in Southeast Asian area. The firm aims to increase the volume by 20-30% during mid-term plan ending March 2008 from current 100 tonnes per month of the present scrap collection in Southeast Asia including used printed circuit board with copper and precious metals. The firm targets offshore market for the business under expectation precious metal scrap generation will not increase when electronics parts and appliance makers moved their production bases to overseas. Mitsui Mining & Smelting also plans to establish the precious metal recycling plant in Shanghai, China and to bring the plant into full operation as early as possible. Then the firm strengthens its precious metal recycling business totally.Mitsui Mining & Smelting recycles precious metals mainly at Mitsui Kushikino Mining in Kagoshima prefecture, Kamioka Mining & Smelting in Gifu prefecture, Takehara refinery in Hiroshima prefecture and Tamano refinery in Okayama prefecture, Japan. The firm totally deals with annual 26,000 tonnes of scrap including semiconductors and printed circuit boards, and recycles 2-3 tonnes of gold per year.Kushikino Mining, the main base of precious metal recycling, recycles precious metals by both wet and dry methods using metal ores from Sumitomo Metal Mining’s Hishikari mine in Kagoshima prefecture. Kushikino Mining consumes about 20,000 tonnes of ores from Hishikari mine. Kushikino Mining collects gold and silver from scrap with the wet method by using cyanide refinement technology. Tamano refinery collects precious metals with the dry method after Kushikino Mining preprocesses scrap.