Falconbrdige Extending Downtime at Zinc Refinery

Falconbridge Ltd. announced that zinc refining operations at its site in Timmins, Ontario, will shut down for 13 weeks this summer, from June 29th to September 30th, for market and supply-related reasons. This revises earlier announced plans for an 8 to 9 week shutdown.

"The anticipated recovery of zinc metal markets early in 2003 is simply not taking place," said Daniel Picard, general manager of the Kidd Metallurgical Division. "Conditions in the marketplace of persistent low treatment charges, combined with recent changes in currency exchange rates and higher energy costs relative to our concentrate purchase and metal sales positions, have led us to conclude that the best course of action is to extend the outage," Picard added. Falconbridge plans to fully supply its zinc customer sales commitments during the entire shutdown period.

As a result of this decision, total zinc production for 2003 has been revised down to 110,000 metric tons from 145,000 metric tons. The company will continue to re-evaluate market forecasts and the profitability of Kidd Metallurgical Division's zinc business. Picard commented, "We are studying all aspects of our zinc operations and will make the appropriate business decisions based on the outcome of these analyses."