China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) announced on August 3 that it had signed a cooperation deal with Russian steel business Evraz to jointly develop the Cape Lambert Iron Ore Project in Western Australia. MCC will purchase the project from Cape Lambert Iron Ore Ltd. for AUD 400 million.

MCC and Evraz, which is part owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, will jointly invest in the development of the project with Evraz taking a 75% stake and MCC 25%.

It is agreed that the Project's entire output of iron ore will be shipped to China and MCC will be entitled to sign an off-take agreement for up to 60% of the iron ore produced at a price 10% lower than international contractual prices.

Cape Lambert Iron Ore is located in the northern coastal region of Pilbara in Western Australia. It has 1.56 billion tons of iron ore reserves, with estimated total reserves of 2 billon tons. The ore in this region has an iron content of around 31.2%.

For more details, please read the complete story in Chinese (http://www.bbtnews.com.cn/mainland/channel/53503.shtml).

(China.org.cn by Chen Boyuan August 5, 2008)