SE Asian tin metal output may not reach 2001 target: Report

Tin metal output for 2001 from major Southeast Asian producers--including Indonesia's PT Tambang Timah and PT Koba Tin, Malaysian Smelting Corp, and Thailand's Thaisarco--may not reach the targeted 91,000mt, Platts quoted industry sources as saying .

Indonesia's 2001 tin metal output is expected to be below the target of 47,000mt, which was slightly higher than 2000's output of about 45,000mt, industry sources said.

Koba Tin, which is Indonesia's only other tin producer besides Timah, is expected to hit its 2001 target output of 12,000mt as it had already produced 11,298mt in the January-September period, marking an increase from 7,824mt in the same period of 2000, said an official from Malaysian Smelting Corp. MSC recently acquired 75 percent of Koba Tin from Australia's Iluka Resources.

PT Tambang Timah, which suffered a 92 percent slump in net profit in the third quarter, was unsure of achieving its 35,000mt target, an official said. Timah recently stopped work on 12 of its 21 offshore dredgers and retrenched 1,140 of its 5,200 workforce.

MSC was expecting to meet its 2001 target of 25-26,000mt of tin metal due to "satisfactory" third quarter output, an official said, declining to give the exact Q3 figure.

Thailand's Thaisarco expects to reach its 2001 target output of 17-18,000mt despite the prolonged weak tin price, a company official said. Thaisarco's Q3 output figure was unavailable but the official was confident of achieving the target as operations have been running smoothly. The company produced 9,286mt for the first half of 2001, representing over 50 percent of its annual target.(*)