The company will own 20% of a new entity, Drummond International, which will own and operate the Colombian coal mining operations and transportation infrastructure currently owned by Drummond.
Itochu will also get certain rights to market coal produced by the Colombian operations in Japan.
Drummond, which will hold the remaining 80% interest in the new entity, commenced coal production in Colombia in 1995, exporting all of its production as thermal coal.
Itochu is planning to increase its equity share in coal mining operations globally from eight million metric tons of production per annum to more than 20 million metric tons per annum by 2015.
