Aluminum Corporation of China to Build Copper Plate Factory in Yunnan Province

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Aluminum Corporation of China Limited (NYSE:ACH) (Chalco) (Beijing) has laid the foundation of a copper processing factory in southern Yunnan Province. Xiao Yaqing, General Manager of Chalco, hosted the ceremony on August 19 in the Qidian Industrial Park in the city of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan.

The $289.9 million ($1 = 6.9 RMB) factory is designed to produce 100,000 tons of copper strips and sheets and 200,000 tons of copper rods annually. Chalco has not disclosed a completion date.

At the same time, Yunnan Copper Company Limited (Kun Ming), China's third largest copper company, has been acquired by Chalco and renamed to Chalco Yunnan Copper (Group) Company Limited, the largest copper subsidiary of Chalco. In the new company, Chalco will hold 49% of all the shares, leaving 47% to Yunnan's provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and 2% to other two local companies.

Chalco has three other copper companies: Chalco Luoyang Copper Company Limited (Luoyang City, Henan Province), Chalco Shanghai Copper Company Limited (Shanghai City) and Chalco Daye Copper Plate and Strip Company Limited (Huangshi City, Hubei Province).

The three companies mainly produce plates and strips, totaling 130,000 tons a year. The companies have 220,000 tons of production capacity under construction.

Chalco and the Kunming University of Science and Technology jointly invested $13 million to research nonferrous metal surveying and processing. Chalco is the world's second largest alumina producer and third largest electrolytic aluminum producer.

Yunnan borders Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos, where plate and strip consumption lags far behind production capacity. Meanwhile, the Chinese province produces 380,000 tons of refined copper, but local companies only produce 100,000 tons of copper products, mainly rods. The Chalco project will help Yunnan to raise plate and strip production and export their product to these other nations.

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