Chinalco aims to boost foray in copper

* Chinalco to strengthen copper investment at home, overseas

* Eyeing global copper resources including Ivanhoe's project

* No plan to add smelter in Peru copper mining project

By Polly Yam

HONG KONG, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco), the leader of the country's aluminium industry, is shifting its development focus to copper, which has greater growth potential in China than aluminium, a senior executive said on Monday.

Chinalco, shrugging off the setback of its failed investment bid last year in global mining giant Rio Tinto, was studying global copper resources for investment opportunities, Vice-President Lu Youqing told Reuters in an interview.

"Copper is our next main development target," Lu said, adding that the company's next major overseas acquisition was likely to be a copper mining and smelting project.

He declined to say how much Chinalco planned to invest in the sector in 2010, however.

Chinalco was interested in projects with good resources and rich energy supplies, although it had not yet entered into talks with potential vendors of overseas copper resources, he said.

Chinalco was looking at all sorts of overseas investment opportunities, including Ivanhoe Mine's Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Mongolia, Lu said.

Asked if Chinalco was interested in buying a stake in Ivanhoe, Lu said: "That mainly would depend on the price and cost. If the cost is right, of course, we are willing to consider."

Keeping up its interest in buying overseas miners' shares after its Rio attempt, Lu denied a rumor that Chinalco would sell its 9-percent stake in Rio to China Investment Corp, the country's $300 billion sovereign wealth fund.

"I don't know about this."

SMELTER

Lu said Chinalco was unlikely to build a smelter on top of its $2.2 billion Toromocho copper mining project in Peru as the original plan did not include a smelter.

"We have not considered building a smelter," he said.

Building work on the Toromocho project will start this year and the mine is expected to produce 210,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate annually from 2012 onwards.

The project could help sate the hunger for copper concentrate in China, which is the world's top consumer of the metal but relies heavily on imports of copper concentrate for its refined metal production.

Locally, Lu said, Chinalco had no plan to build new smelters as the copper smelting sector was already battling overcapacity, but was willing to talk with existing copper smelters about acquisitions.

Chinalco, which holds a stake of 49 percent in Yunnan Copper, is seeking to increase its share in the fourth-largest copper smelter in China.

Chinalco's copper business is operated by its subsidiary, China Copper Company, set up last year and which now has assets worth more than 60 billion yuan ($8.79 billion), although Lu said the company had no solid plans to list it yet.

Lu added Chinalco plans to improve the structure of its aluminium assets, which are operated by listed arm Chalco. (Editing by Clarence Fernandez) ($1=6.826 yuan)