Mitsui & Co.’s Mineral & Metal Resources Business Unit is steadily working to strengthen its copper supply capacity amid growing demand. The company plans to expand production at two copper mines in Chile in which it holds equity interests, while also considering acquisitions of new mining interests to further increase its equity holdings. Alongside these efforts, Mitsui is seeking to expand its copper offtake rights. Florence Copper, a U.S. copper project with which Mitsui signed an offtake agreement in 2022, began production in February this year.
Mitsui holds a 12% interest in the Collahuasi copper mine in Chile and a 9.5% stake in Anglo American Sur (AAS), which operates the Los Bronces mine and other mining assets. The company’s combined attributable copper production from these interests totaled 91,000 metric tons in fiscal 2025.
Under its current three-year medium-term management plan, Mitsui expects attributable copper production to reach 145,000 metric tons in fiscal 2028, the final year of the plan. The Collahuasi mine is expected to account for the bulk of this increase. Under the mine’s production schedule, operations are currently focused on areas where complex ore characteristics make extraction difficult, limiting production growth through the middle of fiscal 2027. However, output is expected to recover from fiscal 2028 onward, with further capacity expansions also planned.
