Japan to invest $1.7bn in copper mines

Tokyo: Two Japanese mining firms will invest up to $1.7 billion in jointly developing copper production bases in Peru and Chile to secure supplies amid growing demand worldwide, a report said on Saturday.

Nippon Mining and Metals Co. and Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co. plan to build the facilities by 2011 to produce up to 250,000 tons of copper ore a year, the leading business newspaper Nikkei reported.

The project will be undertaken by Pan Pacific Copper Co., a joint copper smelting venture set up by the two firms last year.

It will be the biggest nonferrous metal mining endeavour by Japanese companies, the report said.

Copper is a main raw material for electrical wires, cellular phones, personal computers and automotive electronics.

Pan Pacific Copper will develop mines wholly owned by the two firms -- one in Quechua in the Peruvian province of Cusco and the other in Caserones in northern Chile.

In Quechua, production facilities will be built as early as 2010 to produce 70,000 to 100,000 tons a year. The entire output will be shipped to Japan to be smelted into copper bullion, which will be mostly supplied to domestic users, the report said.It added that copper ore production at the Caserones mine would begin in 2011.

The annual ore output of 110,000 to 150,000 tons will be processed into bullion at a smelting plant to be set up there for sales worldwide.

Pan Pacific Copper, which also produces copper ore at other mines, would boost its annual procurement to 350,000 tons when the new mines go into full swing, the daily said.

Japan’s copper bullion consumption stands at roughly 1.25 million tons a year, Nikkei said.

Worldwide consumption of copper amounted to about 17 million tons in 2006, up two percent from 2005, it added.

Pan Pacific Copper shares 40 per cent of the domestic market worth one trillion yen.—AFP