Hebei Steel to Merge with Mineral Assets

Hebei Steel has set its foot in Laiyuan County, a resource-rich region in Hebei Province, aiming to build one of the largest non-ferrous metal production bases in eastern China. The company's initiative, backed by local authorities, to integrate with scores of individual private operators in the Dawan and Dushancheng areas since March 2009 has been near completion.

The group announced it would invest a total of 1.3 billion yuan in the next two years to explore a molybdenum deposit in Dawan with a potential reserve of 220 million tons. When completed, the project will be able to process 3.6 million tons of virgin ore into 8,000 tons of molybdenum concentrates annually.

Hebei Steel has also signed a partnership agreement with Laiyuan Guanghui Mining, a major local metal producer led by UNIS Technology, to set up a large open-pit iron ore mine with an annual output of one million tons.