China ferroalloys, copper plants hit by power, ice

HONG KONG/BEIJING Jan 28 (Reuters) - Power shortages and icy weather have halted production in ferroalloys plants in Guizhou and are disrupting operations at copper smelters in eastern China, plants officials said on Monday.

Heavy snow and sleet have hit central, eastern and southern China, regions used to milder winders. That damaged power networks and have blocked roads. [ID:nPEK2887]

"As far as we know, all ferroalloys plants in Guizhou province have closed since last week," an executive at one large Hong Kong-invested plant said.

He said Guizhou produced half of China's ferro-manganese, used in steel. The country is the world's top supplier of ferroalloys and consumer of copper and aluminium.

The Guizhou government is considering cutting power supply to all local industrial users for two weeks from early February to save power to homes during the Lunar New Year, an aluminium smelter manager said. The Lunar New Year falls on Feb 7.

"We are trying to convince the government to give electricity to us for keeping production pots warm," the manager said, adding the smelter would need to take weeks for reheating all pots.

Snow damaged a major power network in Guizhou last week, halting production of about three-quarters of the province's 700,000-800,000 tonnes of aluminium capacity. [ID:nHKG58350]

Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd., or Chalco, (2600.HK) (601600.SS) said last week power outages in Guizhou forced it to shut two aluminium smelters, totalling 510,000 tonnes of capacity.

Chalco's 1.2 million tonne-a-year alumina refinery in Guizhou was running normally, said one plant official.

In Henan province, smelters' power supplies were getting tighter and supply of alumina, the main material for the metal production, was falling, smelter officials said.

Many roads had been closed and alumina from local refineries could not even be transported to smelters in Henan, where around 3 million tonnes of primary aluminium were produced last year or about a third of China's production.

In eastern China, the country's two largest copper smelters, Jiangxi Copper (0358.HK) (600363.SS) and Tongling Non-ferrous Metals 000630.SZ, were suffering minor power disruptions, affecting production, company officials said.

Supply of copper concentrate had been delayed by the snows, said an official at Jinlong Copper in Anhui province, Tongling's joint venture with Japan's Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd (5713.T).

A cargo of 10,000 tonnes of imported concentrate had sat on the water for two days awaiting unloading because roads linking between the copper plant and the port were closed, he said.

Operations at Hsikwangshan Twinkling Star Co, Shuikoushan Nonferrous Metals, and Zhuzhou smelter in Hunan province have also been affected. [ID:nPEK68959]

(Additional reporting by Alfred Cang in Shanghai)

(Editing by Chris Johnson)