UK firm goes to China

The BOC industrial group from Windlesham, near London, is to play a key role in major Chinese industrial gases projects costing a total of more than 100 million US dollars. It is already the country's leading company in this field.

The United Kingdom group has been investing in China since the mid-1980s and is now linked with specialist companies from the region in a series of joint ventures. Two of these joint ventures will make the $100 million investment in new air separation units (ASUs) for three Chinese steel making expansions at Taiyuan, Suzhou and in the Pearl River region. BOC's chief executive, Tony Isaac, said: "We are confident that our strategy of focused investments in China, including joint ventures, will further cement BOC's current position as the number one industrial gases company in Asia."

BOC-TISCO, the joint venture between BOC Gases and Taiyuan Iron and Steel Corporation (TISCO), will build two new air separation plants to supply 1400 tonnes a day of oxygen to TISCO's plant in Shanxi province in north-central China. The new ASUs will cost US$82 million and are due on stream at the end of 2005. A BOC spokesman said in London: "This investment is in response to strong demand for stainless steel in China and will support TISCO's vigorous expansion plans." TISCO is the largest stainless steel producer in China and has been chosen by the central government as one of two stainless steel development centres. TISCO's current production of nearly 600,000 tonnes a year of crude stainless steel will rise to 900,000 tonnes by 2005, which will make it one of the five largest stainless steel producers in the world.

BOC has also reached an agreement with Guangzhou Iron and Steel (GIS) for its joint venture company, Pearl River Gases (PRG), to build two more ASUs as part of GIS' expansion of its steel manufacturing operations in southern China. Costing a total of US$19 million, the plants will add around 400 tonnes of production to current operations and come on stream by the end of this year.

GIS is a major steel producer in China with an annual steel production capacity of 3.5 million tonnes. PRG was formed in the early 1990s and has three joint venture companies under its management. These three companies together supply oxygen via pipeline to two steel sites, and bulk and compressed gases to the merchant market within the Pearl River Delta.

In a third project, BOC's wholly owned subsidiaries in Suzhou have begun construction of new on-site supply pipelines to meet increasing demand for industrial gases from key customers in Suzhou Industrial Park and Suzhou New District. Coming on stream at the end of this year, the pipeline investments will further strengthen BOC's leadership in its field in the Shanghai/Nanjing area.