Sumitomo Metal Mining to Cut Copper Output by 12% in F2011

Sumitomo Metal Mining announced on Friday the firm plans to make 354,000 tonnes of electrolytic copper in fiscal 2011 ending March 2012. The production is 12.3% from fiscal 2010 plan when the firm plans full scale at Toyo smelter and refinery in Ehime renewal to stop the smelting operation for 60 days from September 13 to November 11. The firm plans full capacity operation for nickel.

The firm plans 155,000 tonnes of electrolytic copper production in the first half of fiscal 2011, which is 23.9% lower than same period of fiscal 2010. The firm tries to build anode stock during the outage. The electrolytic copper production will decreases by 1.9% to 199,000 tonnes in the second half from plan in the same period of fiscal 2010. The firm recovers the production loss by increasing the operation rate after the outage.

The firm tries to keep the electrolytic copper production during the outage by using the anode stock with option for potential anode import. The firm tries to keep the stable supply from Toyo smelter and refinery with 450,000 tonnes of annual output capacity.

Sumitomo Metal Mining gets a lot of copper orders form major users when Mitsubishi Materials’ subsidiary, Onahama Smelting and Refining stopped the operation after the quake. Sumitomo Metal Mining didn’t count the quake impact in the production plan when the firm still tries to figure out the supply and demand balance after the quake.

The firm plans to make 41,000 tonnes of electrolytic nickel at Niihama nickel refinery in Ehime in fiscal 2011, which represents full capacity operation as fiscal 2010. The firm plans 22,300 tonnes of ferronickel production at Hyuga smelting in Miyazaki, which is 18.6% higher than fiscal 2010 plan.

The firm plans to make 37,900 tonnes of zinc as production by commissioning from the joint venture, MS Zinc in the first half of fiscal 2011, which is 21.8% higher than the plan in the same period of fiscal 2010. Sumitomo Metal Mining plans to reduce the electrolytic lead output by 2.8% to 11,000 tonnes in the first half. The firm plans to release the second half production plan for zinc and lead after talk with MS Zinc.

Sumitomo Metal Mining plans to make 29 tonnes of gold and 215 tonnes of silver in fiscal 2011. The firm also plans to make 23,000 tonnes of nickel at Coral Bay Nickel in Philippines and 11.5 tonnes of gold at Pogo mine in Alaska.