(Yicai) June 4 -- Shares of China Nonferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering and Construction, also known as NFC, jumped after the leading Chinese engineering contractor said it signed a USD1.4 billion deal to build a copper plant in Kazakhstan for Kaz Minerals.

NFC [SHE: 000758] closed up 4.8 percent at CNY5.44 (75 US cents) in Shenzhen today, after earlier gaining as much as 6.7 percent.

Kaz Minerals hired NFC to design, build, and operate a copper smelter in Kazakhstan with an annual capacity of 300,000 tons, the Beijing-based company announced yesterday. NFC will also be responsible for the procurement of raw materials and equipment for the project, the firm added, without disclosing any further details.

This is the second major copper project NFC secured in Kazakhstan. In October 2022, the firm announced it would build a copper ore processing plant with an annual capacity of 70 million tons for the Baimskaya copper project owned by Kaz Minerals for USD2.3 billion. The project started construction at the end of last year and has an expected construction period of nearly six and a half years.

NFC provides engineering contracting services in regions including central and northern Asia, Southeast Asia, and central and southern Africa, as well as China’s neighboring countries. It achieved revenue from the engineering contracting business of CNY4 billion (USD550 million) last year, accounting for 43 percent of its total revenue, according to the company’s latest annual report.

Kaz Minerals is one of Kazakhstan’s largest copper producers, as it achieved a total refined copper output of 403,000 tons last year, according to the website of China’s Ministry of Commerce.

Editor: Futura Costaglione