Reuters reported that Jiangxi Copper Company plans to expand its annual capacity of refined copper by more than 10% to 1 million tonnes by 2012.

Mr Gan Chengjiu ED of Jiangxi Copper said that the capacity expansion will coincide with a key overseas mining project moving into production.

He said that Jiangxi Copper and state owned China Metallurgical Group Corp have started work on a copper deposit in Afghanistan. He added that the project, scheduled to start production in 2012 would help to secure raw material supplies for the company.

Mr Gan said that "The supply of copper concentrate is always considered a bottleneck." He added that the company currently produced around 169,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate a year and aimed to increase output to 210,000 tonnes over the next several years.

(Sourced from Reuters)