Jiuda Salt

active

Sichuan Jiuda Salt Manufacturing Co., Ltd (Jiuda Salt or the company), which commenced operations in 1951 as a state-owned enterprise (SOE), was privatized in 2002, and is now the largest private salt producer in China. Currently Jiuda Salt has about 6,900 employees in 7 subsidiaries, including 4 production bases in Sichuan Province, 2 production bases in Hubei Province and 1 R&D institution in Sichuan. The main products of Jiuda Salt are industrial/chemicals salt, edible salt and specialty salt. The company’s salt production capacity reached 2.8 million tons per annum (tpa) in 2006, accounting for about 5% of China’s overall output, including 2.2 million tons of industrial/chemical salt, 0.5 million tons of edible salt and 0.1 million tons of specialized salt.The proposed project has three main components:- expansion of Jiuda Salt’s current production capacity in Sichuan Province (the Capital Expenditure Program);- the acquisition of Yinguang Company in Hubei Province which has a capacity of 580,000 tpa of salt production (agreement signed in May 2007); and - improvement of the company’s balance sheet through refinancing of short-term debt and the settlement of existing pension and tax liabilities which are due to the government. The Capital Expenditure Program includes: - 1.0 million tpa capacity expansion project at the Zigong plant in Sichuan Province; - Changshan salt mine expansion to support the 1.0 million expansion of Zigong plant.- 100,000 tpa capacity expansion project at Specialty Salt Co.- 300,000 tpa vacuum salt capacity expansion project and 200,000 tpa liquid salt capacity expansion project at the Penglai plant.At project completion, the company is projected to increase its production capacity from 2.8 million tpa to 4 million tpa. The total project cost is estimated at $158 million and the project is expected to be completed by 2009.