We are pleased to announce that Roy Hill Holdings Pty Ltd (“RHH”), an Australian company jointly owned by Marubeni Corporation (“Marubeni”), Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd, POSCO and China Steel Corporation, with Marubeni holding a 15% stake, signed a US$7.2 billion project finance contract for the development of the Roy Hill Iron Ore Mine in Australia (the “Project”) on March 20, 2014.

This project finance contract has been signed with a consortium of export credit agencies (Japan Bank of International Cooperation, Nippon Export and Investment Insurance, Export-Import Bank of Korea, Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, and the Export-Import Bank of the United States) and international commercial banks. RHH completed the arrangement of the financing for the full amount of the development cost of the Project by signing this contract. Marubeni believes that this has achieved one of the most important milestones toward the completion of the Project.

RHH has been carrying forward the development of the Project through capital contributed by the shareholders. In March 2013, it appointed Samsung C&T Corporation as the EPC contractor and has now entered the full-scale development stage after having completed the engineering and procurement stage. This project finance facility will be used to fund the remaining development cost including the cost for mine, processing plant, rail and port facility development.

The Project is developing a world class, low cost, fully integrated open pit mine, accompanied by rail and port facilities and will deliver 55Mtpa of high quality iron ore lumps and fines to the global seaborne iron ore market. The expected high grade iron ore products from this mine are much anticipated from steel mills including those in Japan. Marubeni will continue to support RHH for its stable iron ore supply.