Sumitomo Corp. announced Friday that it is taking part in a copper and gold mine development project in Chile. The Japanese trading company expects that metal production from the mine will begin as early as 2033. This project is also expected to contribute to Japan's economic security.

The Dos Amigos mine project will develop a copper and gold deposit in northern Chile. A preliminary economic assessment released this year has identified about 360 million metric tons of mineral resources in the deposit, and there is also a possibility that additional deposits will be discovered in the surrounding area, which could lead to an expansion of the project's scale.

A special purpose vehicle which Sumitomo funded with Canadian mining development group G Mining has subscribed for about 48 million Canadian dollars in a private placement by the company that owns the mine, thereby obtaining an effective economic interest of about 25% in the project.

Copper has a wide range of use, including in power transmission lines and telecommunications cables. With the spread of artificial intelligence (AI), demand for data centers and semiconductors is expected to increase globally, which, alongside the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), is expected to drive up demand for copper.

"We plan to make a full-scale investment around 2030. Copper production is planned to begin sometime around 2033 or 2034," said Koji Watanabe, general manager of Sumitomo's Non-Ferrous Metals Development Business Unit.

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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.

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