UPDATE 1-Nippon Mining may cut copper output on weak demand

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TOKYO, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Nippon Mining Holdings Inc (5016.T), Japan's top copper producer, is considering cutting production of the industrial metal by 10-20 percent due to weak demand, a company official said on Wednesday.

Nippon Mining has yet to decide on the details, such as when the output curb would begin, and aims to reach a decision this year, the spokesman said.

Demand for copper, which has a variety of applications from utensils to construction, has cooled sharply since the financial crisis in the United States deepened, industry officials say.

An output cut by Nippon Mining, which has an annual copper production capacity of about 610,000 tonnes, would follow curbs at its Chinese peers.

Tongling Nonferrous Metals (000630.SZ), China's second largest copper producer, has reduced copper output due to low prices, company sources said in October. [ID:nHKG54095]

Copper on the London Metal Exchange officially closed at $3,555 per tonne on Tuesday. It fell to $3,375 in late November, its lowest since July 2005.

The Nippon Mining official said a production curb would mean it would be buying less copper concentrate, the raw material to produce the metal, next year.

Pan Pacific Copper Co Ltd, the copper refining and development arm of Nippon Mining, had initially planned to produce 310,600 tonnes of copper in the second half of the year ending in March, up about 2.6 percent from a year earlier.

That would be up from estimated production of 299,900 tonnes in the first half ended in September.

In September, the Japan Copper and Brass Association cut its estimate for Japanese copper demand to 977,000 tonnes for the year to March, a decline of 2.1 percent from the previous year. (Reporting by Miho Yoshikawa; Editing by Chris Gallagher)