Metal Products News
- Alumina refiner seeks nod to build plant
Date: 19-Jul-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
SHANDONG Xinfa Aluminum and Electricity Group is seeking approval from the government to build a 1.6 million-tons-per-year alumina plant in Jingxi County in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, officials said yesterday.
An investment official for Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region said construction of the first phase with 1.2 million tons of capacity at the plant would be completed in the first half of next year.
The investment will make Xinfa the second-largest alumina producer in the country after Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd. Xinfa is now the third-largest domestic alumina refiner by capacity.
The project will further increase the country's alumina production, which rose 55 percent in the first five months of this year.
'We are waiting for approval from the National Development and Reform Commission,'said an official at the investment bureau of the Jingxi county government.
The project would include mining bauxite, the ore used to make alumina, which is the material for aluminum production, in Jingxi and building an alumina refinery.
The Jingxi official was confident of receiving approval soon despite a Central Government policy of cooling investment in the energy-intensive aluminum industry.
'The project should be approved soon. We are following state requirements,'he said.
The government has tightened controls over the mining of bauxite to preserve domestic resources and is likely to approve Xinfa to build the alumina plant not over 1.6 million tons of capacity if it used local bauxite.
But Xinfa wanted to build a bigger alumina plant and was looking to import bauxite from Vietnam for the extra capacity, he said.
'If Xinfa uses overseas resources, it can seek another approval for expansion,'the official said.
He saw the capacity of the alumina plant surpassing 2 million tons per year eventually.
'The size of the alumina plant has not been finalized,'a Xinfa source said.
The alumina plant would be built and operated by the group's alumina arm, Chiping Xinfa Huayu Alumina Co., which is also looking to mine bauxite in Australia.
The Jingxi official said Xinfa also wanted to build an aluminum smelter with annual capacity of at least 320,000 tons in the same site in the future.
Xinfa currently has a capacity of 3 million tons of alumina and 560,000 tons of primary aluminum.
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