Japan’s Mitsui to raise stake in Chile’s Collahuasi copper mine

TOKYO, Feb 16 (Reuters): Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co Ltd said on Friday it will reshuffle its copper assets in Chile, increasing its stake in the Collahuasi mine and selling a small stake in the Los Pelambres mine, boosting its overall copper volumes.

Mitsui said it would buy a 3.6 per cent stake in Collahuasi from JX Nippon Mining & Metals, a unit of JXTG Holdings Inc, taking its total stake to 11.03 per cent. It would sell its 1.25 per cent stake in Los Pelambres to JX Metals and trading company Marubeni Corp.

Mitsui said the deals would boost its equity copper output volume by about 15,000 tonnes a year to 140,000 tonnes a year.