TOKYO – Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp said on Wednesday its Ambatovy nickel plant in Madagascar was forced to shut for about two weeks in early February due to trouble at its hydrogen plant, and may miss its revised annual production target.
Sumitomo owns a 47.7% stake in Ambatovy, while South Korea's Korea Resources Corp and Canada's Sherritt International Corp also hold stakes in the project.
In early February, Sumitomo booked one-off losses of about 15-billion yen ($134-million) on the Ambatovy nickel/cobalt project in the October to December quarter and cut Ambatovy's nickel output estimate for the current year to March 31 to 38 000 t to 40 000 t from 40 000 t to 43 000 t.