XinRen Aluminum, a Singapore-listed aluminium producer, is looking to build or acquire a fourth smelting plant in China, Southeast Asia or Saudi Arabia, company officials said.

The China-based firm currently has two smelting plants, which produce primary aluminium such as ingots and plates, with a total production capacity of 275,000 tonnes per year.

It is also waiting for an approval from a provincial government in China to build a third plant with an annual production capacity of 100,000 tonnes in Heilongjiang for 700 million yuan (US$138 million). The investment will be funded by around 60% internal resources and the rest by bank loans.

“There is no concrete plan for the fourth smelting plant yet, but we are scouting for locations beyond China, such as Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia,” executive director Liang Hongbo told Reuters in an interview.

“Building the Heilongjiang plant costs 700 million yuan. It is not a huge amount as we invested about 1.8 billion yuan for the current two smelting plants,” he said.

Liang said the location for the fourth smelting plant must be close to resources such as coal due to the firm's energy-intensive production process, as well as having easy access to transportation and end user markets.