* Timah targets increased sales in North America
* Firm to intensify off-shore mining, add further dredges
By Fitri Wulandari
JAKARTA, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Indonesia's PT Timah Tbk, the world's biggest integrated tin miner, expects sales to traditional customers to be flat in 2010 as soft global demand persists, the company's president said.
But Timah is looking at ways to increase sales to new markets, notably in North America.
Timah normally sells nearly 90 percent of its refined tin production to traditional customers such as electronics and tin plate manufacturers under annual contracts, while selling the remainder on a spot basis when prices are attractive.
"Global demand for tin has not fully recovered and tin prices are still in a down trend, which we can see from the build-up in stocks at the London Metal Exchange," Wachid Usman said in a written statement to Reuters.
"For the time being, we are conservative about our sales target to our customers. It won't change from 2009," Usman said.
Tin for three month delivery on the LME was at around $14,700 a tonne on Monday. The metal has gained some 38 percent so far this year, despite weak physical demand, but is trading some 42 percent below an all-time high of $25,500 hit in May last year, due to weak physical demand.
U.K.-based tin consultant ITRI has forecast a 10-15 percent fall in consumption this year.
Tin stocks in London Metal Exchange warehouses stood at 26,110 tonnes on Friday, down 5 tonnes from the previous day.
PT Timah is maintaining its sales target this year at 45,000 tonnes, out of which about 42,000 tonnes has been locked into an annual sales contract with its traditional buyers.
In the first half of 2009, Timah sold 24,110 tonnes of refined tin, up 15 percent from the same period last year, helped by demand from traditional customers.
The company has also kept its production target at 46,000-47,000 tonnes for this year, although production in the first half fell nearly 16 percent to 19,378 tonnes.
The firm will intensify off-shore mining exploration this year by adding five cutter-suction dredges and two smaller bucket-line dredges modified into bigger capacity bucket-wheel dredges, Usman said.
"We continue to increase off-shore mining to ensure security of supply for our customers," he said.
The additional dredges will be in addition to plans to add seven suction dredges and two bucket-wheel dredges that have been in place since last year, as part of plans to increase off-shore mining output to 50 percent of its total mine production this year from 30 percent last year.
North America accounted for about 8 percent of Timah's sales in the first half of this year, while about 60 percent went to Asia and 27 percent to Europe.
"We see an opportunity to increase refined tin sales to North America because currently the sales are still small," Abrun Abubakar, the firm's spokesman, said. (Editing by Ed Davies and Anthony Barker)