Beijing Business Today reported that Wuhan Iron & Steel Corp Ltd one of China’s largest steelmakers is leading the rivals in acquiring oversea iron ore resources.

WISCO signed a cooperation agreement with Australian Centrex Metals Ltd on July 20th in which CXM will issue 15% shares and offer a seat in its directorate to the steelmaker. According to the agreement, they agreed that the mill can acquire 60% of their cooperating mines in South Australia at unit price of AUD 0.18 per tonne so that the mill will pay a total amount of AUD 216 million.

Since the beginning of this year, WISCO has made amazing achievements in buying oversea iron ore mines. Early this year, the steelmaker was successfully authorized to explore a mine in Africa and then injected USD 240 million into Canadian Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines Limited becoming the 1st largest shareholder of the miner and gained 25% shares, 50% ores of the miner’s mines in Bloom Lake area.

Till May, the mill signed framework agreement with Australian Western Plains Resources to be the 2nd largest shareholder and jointly invest a mine in South Australia. Before this, the mill had signed cooperate memo with Brazilian, referring to buy shares, iron ores and build a steelmaking company.

Mr Deng Qilin GM of the steelmaker said WISCO is heading to the internalization urging itself to strengthen the cooperation with oversea miners.

A source close to WISCO revealed that the steelmaker has a heavy dependence on imported iron ores and it tries to obtain the possession of iron ore mines to ensure the supply.

(Sourced from Beijing Business Today)