Eramet to Expend 370M Euro for Expansion

French ferroalloy major, Eramet expands the capital expenditure by 23% to 370 million euro in 2007 from 2006. The firm expends 170 million euro for nickel unit including expansion to annual 75,000 tonnes of capacity in New Caledonia. The manganese unit expends 130 million euro for new electrolytic manganese dioxide plant in China and catalyst recycle plant in Canada. The nickel unit started Tiebaghi ore enrichment plant in New Caledonia for annual 75,000 tonnes program. The unit also renews mining facilities and introduces 2 ore rotary kilns. The unit also adds a kiln in 2008 and 2009 each and rebuilds no.9 electric furnace in 2008 completing the 75,000 tonnes program. The unit also considers new power generation plant to serve Doniambo nickel plant. The firm tries to improve the energy efficiency for better competitiveness along with better environmental damage control. The manganese unit increases the output level of electrolytic manganese dioxide for alkaline cell at Chongzuo plant in Guangxi of China, which the firm completed construction in January. The unit plans to produce 8,000 tonnes at the plant in 2007 and reaches the capacity at annual 20,000 tonnes level in mid-2008. The unit will expand the plant to 40,000 tonnes of capacity depending on the market. The firm constructs recycling plant for used oil refining catalyst in Alberta of Canada commissioning by the end of 2007. The plant will recover vanadium pentoxide and molybdenum and convert into ferrovanadium and ferromolybdenum.