Mineral Resources
Overview
Sumitomo Corporation has and will continue to make major mineral resource investments in the South American region. In Brazil, we are pursuing new investment opportunities of mineral resources assets in addition to iron ore which we already own. We have been doing trading business in Brazil for a long time, both export from and import to Brazil, creating new value in response to each client needs.
Business Areas
- Natural Resources Mining & Trading – Our focus is on iron ore activities at Mineração Usiminas S.A. (MUSA) located in Minas Gerais State and other raw materials for the steel making industry. This includes ferrous and non-ferrous materials, ferro-alloys such as ferro manganese, mined and produced in South Africa and imported to Brazil, ferro niobium, ferro vanadium exported from Brazil and imported to Japan.
- Carbon Products Trading – We are a distributor of graphite electrodes for electric furnaces, cathode blocks for aluminum smelters, and graphitized materials and products, all imported from Japan and China.
Sumitomo – USIMINAS Joint Venture
Sumitomo Corporation is a business partner of Usiminas, one of the largest steelmakers of Brazil, in Mineração Usiminas S.A. (MUSA), which is engaged in production, transportation and sales of iron ore to domestic and foreign market.
MUSA is located in Serra Azul, Minas Gerais. In 2010, Sumitomo Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation do Brasil jointly acquired 30% of MUSA’s shares from Usiminas which controls the remaining 70% of shares. MUSA is currently conducting a Bankable Feasibility Study for future expansion project, called “Compact project to increase the production capacity of the mine.
