China's Copper Producers to Tap Overseas Mines

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, August 30, 2002

China's Copper Producers to Tap Overseas Mines

Suffering from scarce domestic copper resources, China's largest copper producers have allied to build a new company to tap overseas mines and feed their smelters.

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Suffering from scarce domestic copper resources, China's largest copper producers have allied to build a new company to tap overseas mines and feed their smelters.

The new firm, dubbed China Non-Ferrous Metal International Mining Company, was established Wednesday by China's nine largest copper smelting companies and China Nonferrous Metal Industry's Foreign Engineering and Construction Group Company (CNFC).

The company aims to either seek or develop nonferrous metals, especially copper.

"It is of strategic significance to China's economic development to set up a long-term and stable overseas mineral resources supply base. However many domestic small-scale nonferrous companies are incapable of solely tapping mines abroad. The only way is to jointly exploit overseas mineral resources," said Zhang Jian, general manager of CNFC.

China is seriously threatened by a shortage of copper resources. The domestic copper concentrate output in 2000 was only 593,000 tons (mental content), 34.9 percent of all the copper consumption. It's estimated the rate will drop further to 22.9 percent in 2010 and 15.8 percent in 2020, if no breakthrough in domestic mine exploration and exploitation is made.

A survey by the United States in 1999 showed the world has rich copper resources, about 1.6 billion tons mainly in America, Asia and Africa.

Nonferrous metal is basic material needed in about 91 percent of China's industries.

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