Mitsui Mining Japan predicts 9.8% zinc production increase

Japan’s biggest zinc smelter Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co Ltd plans to produce 117,800 tonnes of refined zinc in the second half of the 2023/24 financial year. They said earlier this month they expect numbers up to 9.8% better from a year earlier's data. The second half of the FY runs from October to March.

Zinc is used mainly as an anti-corrosive coating while producing galvanized steel. Therefore zinc production is vital for the galvanized steel production industry.

Following are details of the company’s output plan according to the numbers. Those are comparisons against the estimated first-half production of the 2023/24 year and the actual second-half output of the 2022/23 financial year, which ended on March 31.

Zinc and lead in tonnes:

H2 FY23/24 H1 FY23/24 H2 FY22/23

Zinc 117,800 103,700 107,300

Lead 36,200 33,800 34,900