<article><p class="lead">A previously stalled 3mn t/yr steel plant in east China's Anhui province plans to start operations by July.</p><p>The plant in Liu'an city in Huoqiu county started construction in 2012 but stalled in 2014 because of insufficient funds. Project work restarted in March last year after equity restructuring in the project, the Huoqiu county government said, without giving details of investors in the project.</p><p>China banned the building of new steel plants in 2016, making the current project one of the few large-scale steel plants that will add to China's overall blast furnace-based steel production capacity. Chinese mills are currently only allowed to replace existing blast furnace-based capacity with a new lower capacity plant.</p><p>Total investment in the project is projected at $1.82bn. Blast furnace, sintering, coking and other steel-producing infrastructure is scheduled to be operational by the end of June. The project will have a pig iron capacity of 3mn t/yr, steel bar capacity of 1.8mn t/yr and wire rod capacity of 1.2mn t/yr.</p><p>The Singapore-listed Delong Holdings had unsuccessfully bid for picking up a majority stake in the project in 2017. The company's bid, submitted in an open tendering process operated by the China Beijing equity exchange, was rejected by the provincial government.</p><p>Delong when submitting its bid said the lack of any other steel project within 300-500km of the proposed plant would allow the mill to supply nearby construction projects. </p><p>Huoqiu county is rich in iron ore resources. The steel project was granted exploration rights for the Fanqiao and Zhouji mines in 2010.</p></article>
