When the EU introduces notes and coins in the year 2002, 80 billion freshly-minted Euros and Euro units will go into circulation and eventually replace marks, francs, pesetas and other currencies. About 345,000 metric tons of metal will be needed to produce that mountain of coins.

More than half will be copper, which will replace nickel, a metal that now accounts for about 70 per cent of European coins and that will be reduced to 2 per cent.

New nickel will prove doubly unwanted because those coins that do contain the metal are more likely to be recycled for the valuable nickel content. Copper, by contrast, may be too inexpensive to justify recycling costs, requiring instead new supplies for new coins.

Analysts said it will take three years to mint all those coins and the duration of the project is likely tocontain any short-term price effects. The 184,000 tons of copper required for the Euro represents 70 per cent of the London Metal Exchange's present copper stocks of 262,200 tons. The 6,500 tons of nickel needed amounts to 10 per cent of nickel stocks.

"We don't expect demand for Euro coins to reflect significantly on prices, particularly not over a period of three years," said Tariq Salaria, metals consultant at CRU International, a UK commodities research company.

With world copper consumption expected to rise to 12.5 million tons in 2002, the Euro coins will represent only 1.5 per cent of demand.

Most of that material will be new. Only when existing national coins are withdrawn from circulation in the second six months after the new ones are introduced will the market have material to recycle. Any price effect of the initial minting would be offset by recycling.

But minting and metals companies are relishing the new business.

"The production of blank coins will require 184,000 tonsof copper, 129,000 tons of steel, 7,300 tons of aluminum, 17,300 tons of zinc and 6,500 tons of nickel," said Christoph Geyer, spokesman for KME Europa Metal AG, an Italian-controlled company that is Europe's biggest producer of semi-refined copper products.

"The amount of coins to be minted is so large that producers in smaller countries will not have the capacity to produce the required amount of blank coins," Geyer told Dow Jones. "KME will be involved in supplying national mints in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, but we hope to supply other countries as well."

Italy is expected to need the largest number of coins - 13 billion - followed by Germany with 11 billion and France with 10 billion.

"The reason why Italians need so many coins is because they are used to having pockets full of coins," Geyer said. "France, on the other hand, needs less coins because the French are accustomed to plastic money." France will take the lead in the European production - first coins will be minted asearly as mid May - and Germany, the Netherlands and Spain will start minting in the second half of 1998. Once they are introduced in 2002, they are to circulate alongside national coins for six months.

"We are waiting for experts to agree on a few more details on the consistency of various coins and then we and other national mints will start looking for suppliers of blank coins," said Horst Gregor, director of the Bavarian Mint, one of Germany's five national mints in charge for minting Euros.

Euros will come in eight denominations. Small denominations, of one, two and five cents, will be made of copper-covered steel. About 48 billion coins, or 60 per cent of the total, are expected in that category.

Medium denominations of 10, 20 and 50 cents will be made from a copper-aluminum alloy, known as Nordic gold, and will account for 30% of the total coinage.

The most difficult coins to produce - and to forge - will be big denominations of one and two euros, which will have twothree-layered rings containing a nickel-brass and a copper alloy.

Once the initial mint is finished, the Euro isn't likely to require much new metal. "Coins are generally very durable," said Horst Gregor, director of the Bavarian mint. "If they are done in the right way they can last up to 30 years. So once euros are produced and minted new production will follow only if the number of coins in use was not sufficient."

Producers said they aren't sure about recycling costs, but added that nickel prices as well as the technology is more likely to encourage recycling. At a price Thursday of $5,570 a metric ton, nickel is far more expensive than copper costing $1,861 a ton.

"The problem with recycling small denominations made of copper covered steel is that it costs a lot to separate the steel from the copper, more than those coins are worth," said Gregor.