Briefs, December 30, 2012
A privately owned Chinese company is finalising the acquisition of an Australian firm that controls a major iron ore mine in west Africa, a move that would give China a stronger role in setting global iron ore prices, Xinhua said yesterday.
A privately owned Chinese company is finalising the acquisition of an Australian firm that controls a major iron ore mine in west Africa, a move that would give China a stronger role in setting global iron ore prices, Xinhua said yesterday. Xinhua, citing the Chinese firm's officials, said Hanlong Group planned to complete the acquisition of Sundance Resources for 45 Australian cents per share by March 1, after submitting paperwork to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Sundance controls the Mbalam iron ore mine, which straddles Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. Hanlong is seeking a tie-up with Chinese state-owned firms and invested US$5 billion to develop the Mbalam project and build a 550-kilometre railway and a shipping port, Xinhua said. Operations are expected to start in 2014. AP
The PLA's youngest serving lieutenant general may have taken up his new post at its headquarters, after a revelation in a report on Friday. The protocol-conscious newspaper mentioned Yi Xiaoguang, 54, deputy commander of the Nanjing military command, in its report after Deputy Chief of General Staff Zhang Qinsheng, but before three other deputy heads from its politics, logistics and armament departments. Meanwhile, the military paper also said Major General Liu Zheng, previously a chief of staff of the General Logistics Department, was promoted to deputy head. Staff Reporter
Minister of Transport Yang Chuantang said his ministry would try to make transport facilities more reliable. Yang said at the ministry's annual conference that the country would strive to improve transport facilities in rural areas as well as in the central and western regions. Some 87,000 kilometres of new highways opened this year, he said. Xinhua
Petrochemical refiner Sinopec has completed building an 800,000 tonnes-per-year (tpy) ethylene plant in the central region. The mainland, which imports about half its ethylene needs and is keen to reduce that amount, is likely to add a total of about 7.5 million tpy of ethylene capacity between 2011 and 2015. Ethylene is a key building block for petrochemicals from plastics to rubber and chemical fibre, and is widely used in the textile, construction and automobile sectors. The plant, in the city of Wuhan on the Yangtze River, will be the first major petrochemical hub in the region. It cost 17 billion yuan (HK$21 billion) and took five years to complete, Xinhua said. Reuters
