Mr Patrick Buffet chairman & CEO of Eramet in France came to Japan and had an interview with pressmen on July 6th 2011 at Hotel Okura in Tokyo. At this meeting, Mr Buffet explained about the Eramet Group's activities as follows:

1. Mabounie Project to develop rare earths in Gabon investigating to develop such rare earths as niobium and tantalum in Gabon and scheduled to commence these productions in 2018 to 2020, to apply for hydrometallurgical process, already carried out in 2011 the test productions on a small scale in France, planned to construct a demonstration plant in Gabon and to implement the test on a commercial scale in 2014 with an expectation to see its results in 2015 and to require in advance the removal of uranium and thorium and to introduce the technology for separation developed by Areva.

2. Weda Bay Project to develop nickel production in Indonesia aimed to decide finally its industrialization in the second half of 2012, scheduled to produce nickel on two phases, consisting of the first phase to produce 35,000 tonnes per year and the second phase to produce 30,000 tonnes per year, to apply for hydrometallurgical process, which has been already well known widely and introduced to smelt copper and zinc at 20 refineries, and this technology is possible to apply to both nickel ore grades of limonite ore and saprolite ore as raw materials.

3. Manganese Project in Gabon scheduled to produce 3,600,000 tonnes of manganese ore in 2011 and planned to produce 4,000,000 tonnes in 2012, the structure to produce 4,000,000 tonnes per annum of manganese ore is on the way to pass and Eramet has planned to expand further this capacity for the future, scheduled to produce silico-manganese and manganese metal in Gabon and these productions are expected to commence in 2013 and necessary electric power to be used for these new productions in Gabon will be certainly provided with hydroelectric power generation.

(Sourced from TEX Report Limited)