Metalnewsnet 22 Mar:

Reuters reported that Tongling Nonferrous 000630.SZ is building a 400,000 tonne copper plant that will up its capacity by half by 2012.

The company executive said that the smelter in Anhui province will boost the firm's refined copper production capacity to 1.2 million tonnes per year, making Tongling the top producer in China. He said that all of the 400,000 tonnes of capacity will start production in 2012.

Outotec Oyj said that the smelter would be built in 2 equal phases with the first 200,000 tonnes of capacity starting production in mid 2012.

The Tongling executive said that the new plant will boost our capacity to 1.2 million tonnes of refined copper a year. Now we have 800,000 tonnes. This included Jinlong Copper, a Sino Japanese venture majority owned by Tongling.

He said that the firm's parent company would supply extra copper concentrates to the listed arm, using production from mines in China and overseas. The listed firm would also import more concentrates to meet the extra demand.

The executive said that the firm had no plan to buy lead and zinc assets from the parent company, which was building lead and zinc smelting capacity in Anhui, home of Tongling.

Mr Wei Jianghong chairman of Tongling said that the parent group has purchased a lead and zinc smelter, which has designed annual production capacity of 100,000 tonnes of lead and 100,000 tonnes of zinc and has already, started producing lead, and will start smelting zinc within the year.

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