Tongling Non-Ferrous Metals Group has started building a new copper smelter in Jinchang, Anhui province. In the first phase, the new plant will have an annual capacity of 200,000 tonnes of copper, doubling to 400,000 tonnes in the second phase. This will raise the company’s total refined copper capacity to 1.2m tons a year. The smelter, expected to be fully operational in 2012, will be supplied by the Finnish headquartered metallurgical group Outotec.

Tongling, whose name means ‘copper hill’, is a city located on the southeast bank of the Yangtze River at the foot of the Southern Anhui Mountains.