Takashi Sakamoto and other Japanese metal industry officials visited LG Metals' refining plant in Changhang on Tuesday and its smelting and refining plants in Onsan on Wednesday, a senior source at LG Group said.

The source said other Japanese industry officials were from Marubeni Corp and Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co Ltd.

Sakamoto, who arrived in Seoul on Sunday, also met on Monday Kang Yu-sik, president of the LG Executive Office for Corporate Restructuring, and Chung Chung-won, president of LG Metals, he said.

Sakamoto was scheduled to leave for Tokyo on Thursday from the southeastern Port city of Pusan, he said.

LG Metals and a Japanese consortium led by Nippon Mining were expected to sign a memorandum of understanding in February after Sakamoto's visit to Seoul with one month duediligence, another industry source said.

An official announcement about the result of their negotiations was expected after LG Metals' shareholders meeting set on February 20, the source said.

Sakamoto said last week in Tokyo that the biggest Japanese copper producer hoped to tie up with the only copper producer in South Korea.

"It would bring big advantages for both of us," Sakamoto said. "You need to have a certain share in the market if you want to have price or premium setting power."

Nippon Mining had proposed LG Metals hive off its Onsan and Changhang copper plants and the two firms then join up as equal partners, Sakamoto said.

Industry sources said Nippon Mining was expected to arrange substantial debt financing for the new joint venture from the Export Import Bank of Japan and other foreign banks to take over LG Metals' smelting and refining plants in Onsan and Changhang.

LG Metals currently has 350,000 tonnes of smelting capacity a year and 420,000 tonnes of refining capacity.

LGMetals also has a copper tube plant with an annual production capacity of 20,000 tonnes and a stainless pipe plant with an annual output capacity of 10,000 tonnes in Changhang, an LG Metals official said.

The company has copper foil plants in Chongup with an annual output capacity of 3,500 tonnes.

In December, LG Industrial Systems Co Ltd, which makes elevator and electric power equipment, said it would merge with LG Metals by May 1 following LG Group's promise to the South Korean government on its restructuring programmes.

The two companies are subsidiaries of the LG Group.