China group in talks to buy Lundin
JACQUIE MCNISH, BOYD ERMAN, BRENDA BOUW, TORONTO, The Globe and Mail, Apr. 29, 2011 

Chinese-led consortium is preparing a potential bid to acquire Lundin Mining Corp. (LUN-T9.260.9211.03%), marking the latest move by China to secure key mining and energy resources to feed its rapidly growing economy.

According to people familiar with the discussions, the buying group is headed by one of China’s largest base metal miners, Jinchuan Group Ltd., and includes the country’s giant sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp. (CIC) Jinchuan is China’s biggest producer of nickel and cobalt and owns a variety of mineral properties in mining frontiers such as Africa and Kazakhstan.

Jinchuan recently signalled that it is on the hunt for mining properties in a variety of resource-rich countries, including Canada. Last year, it agreed to pay $432-million to buy Vancouver-based Continental Minerals Corp., which has a copper and gold project in Tibet.

Lundin, which has a current market value of about $4.9-billion, is currently in discussions with a number of potential buyers. The Chinese are the latest suitor to arrive at the table, and the consortium has been eyeing Lundin since February, when it became the target of a hostile takeover bid by Equinox Minerals

World Bank raises China 2011 GDP forecast
(Agencies) 2011-04-28

The World Bank on Thursday raised its forecast of China's economic growth in 2011 for the second time in as many months and said it was too early for Beijing to halt policy tightening, not least because of inflationary risks.

In its latest quarterly update of the world's second-largest economy, the bank slashed its projection of China's 2011 current account surplus to 3.6 percent of gross domestic product -- comfortably below the 4 percent ceiling mooted by US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for G20 countries.

Following stronger-than-expected outcomes in the past two quarters, GDP is now likely to expand 9.3 percent in 2011, slower than last year's 10.3 percent clip but still a "healthy" rate, the World Bank said.

Countdown begins for space station program
Xin Dingding (China Daily) 2011-04-26

BEIJING - Authorities in charge of the manned space program unveiled plans on Monday to build a 60-ton space station, made up of three capsules, and develop a cargo spaceship to transport supplies.

The China Manned Space Engineering Office said at a news conference that it also wants the public to get involved by suggesting names for the space station, due to completed around 2020.

According to documents provided by the office, the space station, weighing about 60 tons, is composed of a core module and two others where experiments will be conducted.

A cargo spaceship to transport supplies will also be developed.

China copper, aluminium output set for new record in April
Polly Yam, Apr 15, 2011

* Copper, aluminium output set for another record month in April
* Refined copper, aluminium hit monthly records in March
* Copper at 470,000 tonnes, aluminium at 1.428 million tonnes
* Lead seen up in April, but growth may be limited by concentrates (Recasts with forecast, lead and zinc)

HONG KONG, April 15 (Reuters) - China's copper and aluminium production are set for another record month in April, after a March surge, resulting from expanded capacity and rosy demand forecasts by producers.

China produced a record 470,000 tonnes of refined copper in March, up nearly 6 percent from a peak set in December 2010, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Friday.

Some of the output increase was linked to a natural rebound after a short month and smelter slowdown during the Lunar New Year holiday in February as well as demand for copper and aluminium intensive products such as air conditioners ahead of the summer, analysts said.

They added that higher than expected inflation in March won't lead smelters to keep production in check in the near term.

China's foreign reserves pass $3-trillion
JOE MCDONALD, BEIJING— The Associated Press, Apr. 14, 2011

China's foreign reserves have surged past $3-trillion, driven by exchange rate controls that Washington and other governments say distort trade and are hampering a global recovery.

The announcement Thursday indicates Beijing is still intervening in markets to control the value of its yuan despite a June pledge to allow more flexibility.

China Gets a Toehold, and Bitter Memories, in U.S. Iron-Ore Deal
APRIL 13, 2011,  The World Street Journal

The big news in the iron-ore business this month may be the ouster of Roger Agnelli as chief executive of Brazilian giant Vale—just ahead of the BRIC summit that brings top Brazilian officials to China—but Chinese analysts are all over another item: the deal by U.S. miner Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. to acquire Canada’s Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines Ltd. The ink was barely dry before they were hailing it as a potential trump card in Beijing’s ceaseless quest to break the global oligopoly in iron ore.

After all, or so the experts say, Wuhan Iron & Steel Group, China’s third-largest steelmaker, is Consolidated Thompson’s largest shareholder, with 19% of outstanding shares. To the China experts, for Wuhan to have a piece of this enlarged Cliffs delivers “a blow to the position dominated by the world’s top three iron-ore giants, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale,” making the country “less dependent on the three giants.” (The Big Three miners, which control 75% of the global seaborne iron ore trade, are a “blatant tyranny,” the Xinhua story declares.)

China could ban second-generation nuke projects –official
By David Stanway, CHENGDU, Apr 13, 2011

"It is probable that China will stop approving new second-generation units, and it will be difficult to build (reactors) on a large scale until third-generation technology is fully mature," said Li Xiaoxue, general manager of new project development at the state-owned China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp.

China has promised to "adjust and improve" its plans for the nuclear sector after an earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan left the aging second-generation Fukushima reactor complex on the brink of catastrophe.

China gas shortage may end from 2015 on imports –researcher
Apr 13, 2011

(Reuters) - China's natural gas shortage may end from 2015 when sizable imports begin to flood the country, a researcher with top Chinese oil and gas firm China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said on Wednesday.

Domestic production of the fuel will trail demand by 40 billion to 80 billion cubic metres (bcm) by 2015, up from a deficit of some 25 billion cubic metres in 2010, according to Xu Bo, a researcher with CNPC's Research Institute of Economics and Technology.

The shortage will remain steady from 2015 to 2020 as domestic production of nonconventional gas increases and gas demand from the chemical sector moderates due to government policies, Xu said on the sidelines of an industry confernece in Beijing.

He said China would import some 66 bcm of pipelined gas and 43 bcm of liquefied natural gas in 2015 and more than double those amounts by 2020, keeping the market oversupplied.

Minmetals lines up funding for Equinox bid
HONG KONG— Reuters, Apr. 12, 2011

Minmetals Resources Ltd., a unit of China’s biggest metals trading company, said on Tuesday that three Chinese banks will provide at least $4.6-billion in corporate debt financing for its bid to buy Equinox Minerals Ltd. (EQN-T8.100.010.12%)

A majority of the loan would have a tenure in excess of six years and would be partly secured by its assets, the company said in a statement posted to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

A Chinese institution will also invest $600-million in Minmetals equity if the deal is successful, with the balance of funding required for the $6.5-billion deal to be satisfied by its cash reserves, the company added in the statement.

New energy industries to fuel China's green growth

(Xinhua) 2011-04-11

BEIJING - With China's ambitious plans to cut carbon emissions for a greener economy during the 12th five-year plan period from 2011 to 2015, new energy industries are becoming even more significant than in the past. These industries will be responsible for serving the country's growing appetite for energy to feed its rapid development.

According to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), China overtook America as the world's largest energy consumer in 2010.

Demand by China, which has outpaced Japan to become the world's second largest economy, will keep climbing rapidly in years to come, the report said.

But with the world oil supply on a downslide and prices heading skyward due to unrest in the Middle East, China will increasingly feel pressure to meet its energy demands.

To guarantee enough fuel for economic growth, experts point to the new energy sector, namely renewable sources such as wind, solar, nuclear and tidal power, as an answer.

"Traditional energy sources will run out sooner or later. We should take actions to brace for the shortfalls now," said Qin Haiyan, secretary general of the Chinese Wind Energy Association (CWEA).

"Surging oil prices made us all the more determined to develop renewable energies," he said.

China's new energy sector has witnessed significant developments over the past several years as part of the government's efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

According to a report by the Climate Policy Initiative at Tsinghua University, China added 90GW of additional hydropower, 25GW of wind power and 2GW of nuclear power during the period from 2005 to 2008.

China mulling tighter procedures to slow wind-power rush-report
BEIJING, Apr 7, 2011

(Reuters) - The Chinese government is considering stricter approval rules for wind power projects to cool heady growth in the sector, a Chinese newspaper said on Friday, following a report that the country had overtaken the United States in installed capacity.

Citing unnamed sources, the China Securities Journal said the national energy administration was considering tighter procedures that would include requiring local governments to get the written approval of the National Energy Bureau before going ahead with wind projects with installed capacity of less than 50 megawatts (MW).

"Analysts pointed out that it is hoped that this (new) policy will cool the current excessively fast growth of the wind power sector," said the Chinese-language paper.

Up to now, local governments have merely had to report to central authorities plans for wind projects of less than 50 MW, not gain their express permission.

Fu Chengyu Will Take Newly-Created Post of Chairman at China Petrochemical
By Bloomberg News - Apr 8, 2011

China appointed Fu Chengyu to the newly created position of chairman at China Petrochemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, after he presided over a fivefold profit increase at smaller state-controlled oil producer Cnooc Ltd. (883)

Sinopec Group, as China Petrochemical is known, set up a board of directors and will appoint a president separately, according to a statement posted on its website yesterday. Su Shulin, its former president, has taken a government post in Fujian province, according to the statement.

Cnooc’s profit was 54.4 billion yuan ($8.3 billion) last year, up from 11.5 billion yuan in 2003, when Fu became chairman. The stock price has climbed more than sevenfold in Hong Kong under his tenure, twice as much as Sinopec. Undeterred by a failed bid for Unocal Corp. in 2005, Fu has since led the Beijing-based company to $17.6 billion of global acquisitions to supply the biggest energy-consuming nation.

China government academy urges carbon emissions peak by 2030
By Chris Buckley, BEIJING | Wed Apr 6, 201

China's high and rapidly climbing output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas pollutant from burning coal, oil and gas, has put it in the centre of negotiations for a new world pact to reduce the emissions that fuel global warming.

Those talks resumed in Bangkok this week, and Beijing's negotiators are armed with their government's development plan for 2011-15, which vows to cut by 17 percent the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels for each unit of GDP growth.

But China has repeatedly said it will not accept a more stringent, absolute cap on total emissions, calling it an unfair burden on developing nations that have much lower emissions per person than rich economies. It has also refused to say when its emissions could peak and begin to fall.

The study from the Chinese Academy of Engineering and other recent reports and comments, however, show that some Chinese experts and officials believe the country will have to make bold gains in energy and emissions, or risk pushing resource use and emissions beyond tolerable limits

China's Minmetals offers $6.5 billion for Equinox
By Michael Smith and Sonali Paul, MELBOURNE | Mon Apr 4, 2011

(Reuters) - Minmetals Resources (1208.HK), China's biggest metals trading firm, on Monday offered $6.5 billion to buy Equinox Minerals (EQN.AX)(EQN.TO), chasing Equinox's copper assets in Zambia and Saudi Arabia.

China, which accounts for 40 percent of the world's demand for copper, is on a mining acquisition spree as prices for the red metal hover near record highs.

Minmetals, which owns mining operations in Australia and Asia, said it would offer C$7 per share for Equinox, a 23 percent premium to Equinox's close in Toronto last Friday of C$5.71.

It would be China's fourth-biggest outbound M&A deal, according to Thomson Reuters data.