Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President & CEO: Masami IIJIMA; hereinafter "Mitsui") and ITOCHU Corporation (head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President: Masahiro OKAFUJI; hereinafter "ITOCHU") are pleased to announce that they have agreed to acquire interests in BHP Iron Ore (Jimblebar) Pty. Ltd. which is developing the Jimblebar Iron Ore mine (hereinafter "Jimblebar") in Western Australia, part of the Iron Ore business of leading mining company, BHP Billiton (Australia & UK). Binding documents have been executed this morning.
Mitsui and ITOCHU will acquire 7% and 8% interests respectively in Jimblebar and BHP Billiton will hold 85%. The investment amounts are approximately US$0.7 billion (66.5 billion yen) for Mitsui and US$0.8 billion (76.0 billion yen) for ITOCHU. Mitsui and ITOCHU will also contribute future development costs for Jimblebar in proportion to their shares.
Jimblebar is a large prospective deposit located 41km east of Newman in the Pilbara region. The mine is now under construction and will be a large scale, low cost, open pit mining operation with an initial production capacity of 35 million tons per annum, and with embedded options for expansion to 55 million tons per annum for incremental capital investment.
Mitsui and ITOCHU, together with BHP Billiton, have a long term relationship in three iron ore joint ventures, Mt. Newman, Yandi, and Mt. Goldsworthy in Western Australia (BHP Billiton holds an 85% share, Mitsui 7%, ITOCHU 8%), and Jimblebar ore will be transported through the rail and port facilities owned by these joint ventures. The three joint ventures shipped a total quantity of approximately 180 million tons in financial year 2012, and are currently expanding infrastructure capacity to 220 million tons per annum (including to service Jimblebar).
Through this transaction, Mitsui and ITOCHU seek to increase iron ore supply capacity through the Western Australia Iron Ore operations, in response to the expected increase in the medium to long term worldwide iron ore demand.
| Established | June 30th 2001 A leading mining company established as a result of the merger of Australia's Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP), which focused on iron ore, coal, oil, natural gas, and other resources, and the UK's Billiton (with a Dutch and South African background), which specialized in aluminum, nonferrous, coal, etc. |
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| Head Office | Melbourne, Australia A dual-listed company in Sydney and London. Also listed on markets in Johannesburg (South Africa) and New York. |
| Recent Performance | Full year ending June 2012 (July 2011 - June 2012): Proceeds: US$72,226 million (Approximately ¥ 6.9 trillion) Earnings after tax: US$17,117 million (Approximately ¥ 1.6 trillion) Half year ending June 2013 (July 2012 - December 2012): Proceeds: US$32,204 million (Approximately ¥ 3.1 trillion) Earnings after tax: US$5,683 million (Approximately ¥ 0.5 trillion) |
Notice:
This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Mitsui's current assumptions, expectations and beliefs in light of the information currently possessed by it and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause Mitsui's actual results, financial position or cash flows to be materially different from any future results, financial position or cash flows expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors referred to above include, but are not limited to, those contained in Mitsui's latest Annual Securities Report and Quarterly Securities Report, and Mitsui undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.
This announcement is published in order to publicly announce specific facts stated above, and does not constitute a solicitation of investments or any similar act inside or outside of Japan, regarding the shares, bonds or other securities issued by us.
