Hong Kong based
trading company CITIC Pacific is planning to sell half of its shares in one of the recently acquired Australian mines to Wuhan Iron and Steel Group.
The company is planning to sell 50% of the shares in Sino Iron mine to Wuhan with a price around $100 million. The shares provide mining rights for 500 million tons of magnetite, and the agreement is expected to be completed by June.
CITIC Pacific acquired two mines, Sino Iron and Bal-moral Iron, in the Pilbara region of
Australia in April 2006, spending $415 million. Each of these mines posses the rights for the exploration of one billion tons magnetite. The company is expecting to obtain 25 percent return on investment from these projects.
CITIC Pacific currently predicts that the first year output after the completion of the project will be 12 million metric tons, 8 million metric tons of which will be spared for its own use.