JCC Builds Rare Earths Base in Sichuan    

Jiangxi Copper Corporation (JCC, HK: 00358), headquartered in Jiangxi province of southeastern China, recently announced that it signed an agreement with Sichuan Mineral Industry Investment Group to develop the rare earths resource in Mianning county of Sichuan province, southwestern China through the joint venture Sichuan JCC Rare Earths Company Limited, in which JCC is the majority shareholder with 56% equity and the remaining 44% for Sichuan Mineral Industry Investment Group. Sichuan Mineral was jointly created by China Nonferrous Metals Chengdu Company and Sichuan Domestic Economy Development Company on April 30th, 2009.
    The joint venture will invest RMB3.66 billion in processing rare earths concentrates in six years and build a national rare earths research and development base.
   Mianning of Sichuan province is China's second largest rare earths reserve region, next to Baotou of Inner Mongolia, with a total reserve of 1.57 million tons. Before 2007 many exploring companies had disorderly developed rare earth minerals in this region, wasting resources and destroying the environment. Since April of 2007 the Mianning government started a strict control on the rare earth metal use and shut down 20 companies involving rare earth metals in 14 months. In June 2008 the government sold the mining right in a 2.94 square kilometer area to JCC for RMB430 million. This area is now operated by Sichuan JCC Rare Earths Company Limited. According to a manager of Sichuan JCC Rare Earths Company Limited, the company has produced 5 976 tons of rare earth concentrates in the first ten months of 2009 and is actively renovating its extraction separation facility in order to have a rare earths separation capacity of 7 000 t/a.
   The JCC managing team expects to build the joint venture into a platform that can support the group to extend the production chain towards high end. China's leading copper processing company JCC also hopes to get support from the Sichuan local company - Sichuan Mineral Industry Investment Group. JCC will spend RMB2.06 billion in the first phase development project in the Mianning JV, scheduled for completion before December 2011. For the second phase, JCC plans a budget of RMB1.6 billion to form five rare earth metals chains before December 2015.  
   By this strategy, JCC can make itself China's third largest rare earth giant, next to Baotou National Rare-earth Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone and China Minmetals Corporation Rare-Earth (Ganzhou) Company Limited.