SHANGHAI--China Minmetals Corp., the country's largest producer and trader of metals and minerals, has been stepping up efforts to secure overseas supply of raw materials as China's appetite for natural resources to fuel a booming economy continues to expand.
By signing long-term contracts with international miners and acquiring mines abroad, mining assets owned by the company have been growing rapidly, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission said Wednesday.
Minmetals now owns nearly 600 million metric tons of iron ore reserves, 385,000 tons of tungsten reserves, 280 million tons of coking coal reserves, and is supplied with 2.51 million tons of alumina annually, the SASAC said.
Last year, it signed an agreement with the world's largest copper producer, Chile's Corporacion Nacional del Cobre de Chile, or Codelco, which promised to supply a total of 850,000 tons of electrolytic copper in the next 15 years.
Minmetals has also entered the upstream business, earning prospecting rights of both domestic and overseas mines including bauxite mines in Jamaica, and copper, tungsten and tin mines in Bolivia.
In 2006, Minmetals saw record high revenues, which rose 6% to $18.9 billion.
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