The Hunan Shuikoushan Gold & Copper Integrated Recycling Project for industry upgrading & technology transformation entered substantive construction stage; In April, two of its early stage sub-projects, namely the concentrate storage bin project and auxiliary material plant house & temporary road project, formally kicked off. The Project’s core engineering construction will kick off in July this year.

The already started concentrate storage bin and auxiliary material plant house projects are key components of the Gold & Copper Integrated Recycling Project, including main span, side span, 4.5m pit and 2.5m pit housing etc, with a floor space of over 10000 sqm, and investment in construction engineering of more than 35 million yuan. Two other early stage subprojects, namely concrete mixing station and oxygen station sub-projects, have finished public bid invitation and contract signing, and will kick off after finishing land expropriation, housing demolition and resident relocation.

Hunan Shuikoushan Gold & Copper Integrated Recycling Project is the first major project implemented after the takeover of Hunan Nonferrous Investment by the China Minmetals Corporation. By relying on China Minmetals’ massive overseas copper resources and the SKS copper smelting process technology independently developed by Shuikoushan, this Project aimed to build domestic copper smelting integrated recycling base. This Project has received vigorous support from Provincial officials and officials of Hengyang City, as well as related functional provincial departments; provincial and municipal officials have visited the site to convene coordination meetings for many times, intending to propel project construction. Up till now, all administrative approval formalities of the Project have been completed, and its total accrued investment has reached 360 million yuan. Furthermore, China Minmetals recently has successfully acquired Peru’s “Las Bombas” Project, which can offer sufficient raw material guarantee to the Gold & Copper Project.

According to Xiao Gongming, General Manager of the Minmetals Copper (Hunan) Co., Ltd, the Gold & Copper Recycling Project will be fully completed and launched into production at the end of 2015, capable of processing 550,000 tonnes of copper, gold, silver, and sulfur materials each year, with annual production of 100,000 tonnes of first grade copper cathode, and 2.44 tonnes of gold ingot, it is expected that during the operation period it will record up to 6 billion yuan of annual average operating revenue, and generate 150 million yuan of tax. Meanwhile, this Project holds key demonstrative meaning for the technology reform development of old industrial zones, and the regulation of heavy metal pollution in Xiangjiang River.