FACTBOX-Chinese companies expand mining overseas

Feb 1 (Reuters) - Chinese companies have been expanding overseas rapidly in search for mining resources to feed the country's growing economy.

In its latest move, Aluminum Corp of China (Chinalco), the world's third-biggest alumina producer and the nation's biggest aluminium and alumina supplier, has teamed up with U.S. company Alcoa (AA.N) to buy a 12 percent stake in Rio Tinto (RIO.L) (RIO.AX) for $14 billion, giving access to raw materials and threatening to thwart a potential bid by BHP Billiton (BLT.L) (BLT.L). [ID:nL01435125])

Following is a brief list of key overseas projects by China's top metals companies:

ALUMINIUM:

* Aluminum Corp of China Ltd (Chalco) signed a deal in May last year to invest $2.4 billion in Australia's Arukun alumina project. The plant will have an annual capacity of 2.1 million tonnes.

* Aluminium Corp of China Ltd (Chalco) agreed last year to co-build an 1-million-tonne-a-year aluminium smelter costing $3 billion in Saudi Arabia, together with Saudi Binladen Group.

* Chalco is also developing bauxite deposit in Brazil's Para state, together with Companio Vale do Rio Doce (Vale). It is to start operation early in 2009.

* Chalco is talking to Vietnam about major bauxite and alumina refining projects, which Hanoi says need about $15.6 billion.

* Minmetals bought a 51 percent stake in U.S.-based Sherwin Alumina in 2004. Minmetals also has a 30-year contract with Alcoa Inc. to receive 400,000 tonnes of alumina a year until 2027.

COPPER

* State-owned Minmetals Corp and Chile's state-owned Codelco signed a deal in May 2005 giving the Chinese company 55,000 tonnes of refined copper over the next 15 years, plus an option to buy 25 percent of Codelco's Gaby mine, which is slated to produce 150,000 tonnes a year of copper from 2008. An initial $550 million investment can be extended within a $2 billion framework.

* Jiangxi Copper Co Ltd (0358.HK) (600362.SS) said in December 2007 that it was setting up a joint venture with China Minmetals Nonferrous Metals Co Ltd to buy Canadian miner Northern Peru Copper Corp NOC.TO in a deal valued at C$455 million ($453 million).

* Jiangxi Copper and other member smelters in the China United Copper Co. Ltd. group could take a stake in an enlarged Saindak copper mine in Pakistan, where China's MCC Resources Development Co (Pvt) Ltd. has a lease to mine copper until 2012.

* Jiangxi Copper Ltd said in November it would form a consortium with China Metallurgical Group Corp to participate in a tender for development of mineral resources in an Afghanistan copper mine. The Aynak mine has resource reserves of 705 million tonnes of ore with an average copper content of 1.56 percent comprising 11 million tonnes of copper metal deposits.

* State-owned China Nonferrous Metals Industry Foreign Engineering and Construction (Group) Co. is investing $900 million in the Chambishi copper mine in Zambia. It includes spending of $200 million to construct a copper smelter.

* Zijin Mining Group agreed to buy more than 50 percent of Peru-focused copper miner Monterrico Metals and to develop its Rio Blanco project for about $1.4 billion.

NICKEL

* China's state-owned Minmetals is investing $500 million in a joint venture to produce 68,000 tonnes a year of ferro-nickel in eastern Cuba. Cuba hopes to almost double its nickel production within three years with the help of Chinese investments.

* Jinchuan Nonferrous Group has deals to take nickel concentrate output from Australian miners WMC Resources Ltd., Sally Malay Mining Ltd. and Fox Resources Ltd.

* China Metallurgical Construction Corp. also signed an agreement in March 2005 with Highlands Pacific Ltd. giving it an option to take up to 85 percent of the Ramu nickel project in Papua New Guinea. The agreement calls for the Chinese company to fund development of the mine, estimated at $650 million, in return for exclusive rights to projected annual output of 33,000 tonnes of nickel for at least 20 years.

* State-owned China Nonferrous Metals Mining (Group) Co. Ltd. said last year it would start developing a nickel mine in Myanmar. It is to invest more than $600 million in the project, which is to start production in 2009.

(Reporting by Polly Yam and Nao Nakanishi in Hong Kong; editing by Chris Johnson)