Japan's Sumitomo Metal plans to increase copper output by 6.1 percent

Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd, Japan's second largest copper smelter, plans to increase copper output in fiscal 2016, which began Friday, by 6.1 percent from a year earlier, when production was hit by maintenance work.

The company expects 445,200 tonnes of electrolytic copper to be produced in the current fiscal year, up from 419,500 tonnes a year earlier. Sumitomo is also set to increase electrolytic nickel production by 2.0 percent in 2016, but expects a 29 percent drop in ferronickel production due to the planned shutdown of an electric arc furnace in southwest Japan.

In February, the plant announced it would halt operations at one of its two local electric arc furnaces to cope with lower shipments of nickel ore following an export ban from Indonesia in 2014. After Indonesia banned the export of raw nickel in early 2014, Sumitomo turned to nickel ore from New Caledonia and the Philippines as a replacement. The company plans to acquire 90 percent of the nickel ore in New Caledonia and the remaining 10 from the Philippines this year.