JOHANNESBURG (Keith Campbell at miningweekly.com) – China’s Shougang group, the country’s fourth-largest steelmaker, has announced that it is going to invest $1-billion in its Peruvian iron-ore mining subsidiary, Shougang Hierro Peru.

This was announced by Shougang group President Wu Bin after a meeting with Peruvian President Alan Garcia.

This investment will boost Shougang Hierro’s production capacity to 10-million tons a year of iron-ore by late 2010. This will double the Peruvian operation’s production.

Shougang has been active in Peru since 1993 and Shougang Hierro is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese group.

With its head office in Lima, Shougang Hierro is the largest iron-ore producer on the west coast of the Americas. It operates a mine with openpits, beneficiation plants and a port.

These are located on the Peruvian coast, some 525 km south of Lima.

The mine and its associated primary and secondary crushing circuits are located at San Juan de Maracona, about 800 m above sea level and 14-km inland, while the beneficiation plants and the port are at San Nicholas.

The mine currently has four openpits in operation, these being numbers 2 to 5 inclusive.

After going through the primary and secondary crushing circuits, the iron-ore is carried by conveyor belt to San Nicholas, where there is a tertiary crushing facility.

Also at San Nicholas are a balling and induration plant, a dewatering and filtering facility, a pellet feed production circuit and a sinter feed production circuit.

The Peruvian company’s product range comprises blast furnace pellets, direct reduction pellets, pellet chips, high-grade pellet feed, calibrated sinter feed, high-grade sinter feed and dolomite.