Hong Kong-based conglomerate CITIC Pacific has announced that it is delaying completion of its $8 billion Sino Iron project in Western Australia until late May because of engineering problems, the latest in a series of setbacks to plague China's single-largest foreign mining investment.
Sino Iron had already missed a February start date for the project, which was originally expected to ship its first ore in 2010 to Asian steel mills. The project is expected to reduce Asian mills' reliance on the global iron ore supplier trio of Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.
Located in Western Australia, the Sino Iron Ore project is the largest magnetite ore project in Australia. The project is designed to produce 24 million metric tons of iron ore concentrate annually.