Mitsui and Sumitomo Postpone Copper Fabricating Business Integration to July

Mitsui Mining & Smelting and Sumitomo Metal Mining announced on Friday the firms reschedule the integration date of their copper alloy fabricating businesses to July 1st, 2010 from previous April 1st. Integration of their sales and production systems is delayed from initially planned. The basic terms for the business integration won’t change other than the implementing date.

Mitsui Mining & Smelting and Sumitomo Metal Mining announced in May 2009 to integrate their copper alloy fabricating businesses and establish a fifty-fifty investing company. They have established a preparatory committee and held meetings so far.

The business integration targets higher competitiveness by improvement of production and sales efficiencies or technical cooperation. Output capacity of the new establishing company will be approximately 6,000 tonnes per month.