China ferroalloys, copper plants hit by power, ice

By Polly Yam and Lucy Hornby

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: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (601600.SS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said last week power outages in Guizhou forced it to shut two aluminium smelters, totalling 510,000 tonnes of capacity.