Ready to build By Polly Yam SHANGHAI, Nov 19 (Reuters) - A new...

Ready to build

By Polly Yam SHANGHAI, Nov 19 (Reuters) - A new state-owned copper smelter in China is eyeing a project to build 200,000 tonnes of annual capacity on the waterfront in the port city of Yantai, a company official said on Thursday. Yantai Guorun Copper Industry Co Ltd started up 60,000 tonnes of smelting and refining capacity in July this year, renting the mothballed facilities of failed Yantai Penghui Copper Industry Co Ltd in northeastern Shandong province, the official at Guorun told Reuters. Guorun hired many ex-workers from Penghui, the official said. State-owned Penghui Copper, a medium-sized smelter with 120,000 tonnes of annual refined copper capacity, had halted production in December 2014 after running out of cash. Penghui was majority controlled by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of Yantai city. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N0XQ3R4 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N0UM1KG Yantai Guorun Copper is wholly owned by the Yantai commission, which intends to hand the project for a bigger smelter to the new producer. The Yantai SASAC intends to give us the project, the official said, declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak to media. The project was previously approved for 180,000 tonnes of smelter capacity and assigned to Penghui Copper. The SASAC of Yantai city now plans to revive the project and expand it to 200,000 tonnes, the company official said. The revived project would need new approvals from the city government and environmental authorities in Shandong, he said. The official said Guorun Copper was seeking investors to jointly build the 200,000-tonne smelter, which would mainly use copper concentrate imports as feedstock. (Editing by Tom Hogue) (([email protected]; +852 2843 6933; Reuters Messaging: [email protected])) Keywords: CHINA COPPER/GUORUN