BLBG:Mitsubishi Materials to Boost Gresik Smelter Copper Output 29%
Mitsubishi Materials Corp., Japan’s third-largest copper producer, said it plans to increase refined metal production by 29 percent this year at its Gresik smelter in East Java, Indonesia.
The company’s Indonesian unit, PT Smelting, will produce 270,000 metric tons in 2013, compared with 210,000 tons in 2012, spokesman Toshiaki Yamada said today. The company’s 2012 output was lower than its forecast of 259,000 tons because of maintenance in May and declining ore grades, he said.
PT Smelting, with an annual capacity of 300,000 tons, is 60.5 percent-owned by Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Materials. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. has a 25 percent stake, Mitsubishi Corp. owns 9.5 percent and JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corp., a unit of JX Holdings Inc., has 5 percent.
Output from the smelter is sold to Indonesia and neighboring Southeast Asian nations.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jae Hur in Tokyo at jhur1@bloomberg.net; Ichiro Suzuki in Tokyo at isuzuki@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brett Miller at bmiller30@bloomberg.net
