On the east coast of the Pacific Ocean, in the Marcona Mining Area on July 31st, 2018, Peru local time, the grand completion ceremony for Shougang Hierro’s 10-million-ton mineral concentrates expansion project in Peru was held.

Working on the first large-scale project completed in Peru after the “Belt and Road” Initiative docked Latin America, Shougang’s people pioneered businesses in a foreign country.

In order to reach this day, Shougang’s people persisted and struggled through numerous sleepless nights and made great efforts…

In the 670-square-kilometer mining right area of Hierro Peru, there is rich iron ore and associated copper, zinc and lead resources. By virtue of the unique geographical location, the construction of a world-competitive mining enterprise was not only the expectation of Shougang Group, but also the dream of several generations of Shougang Hierro Peru people for nearly 30 years.

After the completion of the 10-million-ton mineral concentrates expansion project, the annual production capacity of Shougang Hierro Peru is more than 20 million tons, reaching the international first-class level and becoming an important support point for Shougang’s overseas development strategy.

A far-sighted strategic plan, excellent planning and design, and coordinated and efficient construction.

This is a miracle. Peruvian President Pescara praised Shougang for creating a miracle in Peru’s engineering construction;

This is a leap. Chinese Ambassador to Peru Jia Guide believes that as the earliest enterprise entering Latin America, Shougang Hierro Peru has made a leap once again today;

This is an advantage. Zhang Gongyan, the Secretary of the Party Committee, President and General Manager of Shougang Group, emphasized that the Group’s coordination and high-efficiency advantages and independent integration capabilities had created a new model for Shougang’s overseas engineering projects.

The miracle, leap, and advantages tell the Shougang people’s thousand words and condense their hardships.

As a major strategic project of Shougang Group, under the correct leadership of the Party Committee of the Group, the project team of Shougang Hierro Peru New District fully exerted the comprehensive advantages of the Group, cooperated with all parties with concerted efforts, connected domestic and overseas advantages, adhered to “the same goal, the integrated measures, complementary action and related interests”, carried forward the spirit of Shougang, took the problem as the orientation to meet the difficulties, took the hard and solid work and the fine organization as the starting point, and strove to overcome the influence of various unfavorable factors, serving as the Shougang “specimen” on the “Belt and Road” again in Marcona, overcoming geographical remoteness and inadequate construction resources and accomplishing a new construction miracle.

Forged ahead: show the hero’s “pioneering” true color

26 years ago, Shougang’s people went abroad and entered Latin America, becoming the first pioneers. So today, Shougang people, once again as pioneers, realized their initial dream in a foreign country.

In 2015, in combination with the Group’s industry and strategic layout, the Group’s leaders clearly proposed to promote the design, procurement and on-site construction of the new district selection plant and desalination project on the basis of the implementation of the one-step engineering, crushing, and transportation system construction in the Hierro Peru New District Project and ensured the duration target for completion on July 31st, 2018.

It’s no exaggeration to describe Marcona with beaches, barren hills and desert. It has scarce construction resources, a poor labor environment, constraints on construction conditions, frequent earthquakes, and bad weather. Additionally, all resources required for construction, such as manpower, materials, machinery and vehicles needed to be transported from Lima, Arequipa, over 500 kilometers away, and from other large cities. Members of the construction team gathered in the site for a long time and the machinery was in a slow position. As compared to a similar project, the construction period was 2 to 3 times longer than that in China. According to the organization of the construction projects of similar mines in Peru, the reasonable project construction period was about 30 months.

The construction of Hierro Peru New District Project faced multiple challenges such as tight time, heavy tasks and environmental limitations.

From a technical point of view, the New District Project was not extremely difficult, but it was definitely a “hard battle”. In China, such a project would be a huge challenge, not to mention in Marcona, with scarce resources and an “unbelievable” construction environment. But no one complained about its toughness, no one said he was tired, and no one withdrew from the project.

In response to the local conditions in Peru, Hierro Peru inherited the spirit of the Shougang people, who “have never retreated in the face of a severe situation of retreating, never been intimidated by difficulties, never escaped the encountered problems”. Neither company leaders nor cadres nor employees were afraid of hardships and bitterness; they always kept their position.

-Broke the routine and organized in advance

In the case of uncertain engineering volume, Hierro Peru Company organized internal analysis and research, considered and arranged the preliminary work of construction bidding invitation and bidding in advance through the project quantity, B edition drawing and its function description and other ways, started the bidding invitation work as soon as possible, and reduced the on-site waiting time. They reduced the process time for bidding invitation and inquiry. They reduced the bidding invitation time from approximately 30 days to 24 days, and the inquiry time from 20 days to 15 days, which had been unimaginable in the past. They used the project quantity list to organize on-site construction bidding invitations, strengthened the management and control of each major key link, and intensified the internal approval process management. It was necessary to strictly implement the various approval procedures, and strictly control the time limit for approval of each department so that the construction procedures could be effectively linked.

-Split procedures and constructed in parts

The procedures with the construction conditions were split, and the large-scale concrete foundation excavation work was first carried out to ensure the on-site construction continued. The ore dressing plant was divided into five areas according to the process flow, namely high-pressure roller grinding, screening, main plant, filtration, process water and external network. According to the construction process, each area was divided into basic construction, steel structure equipment installation, electrical construction, automatic control system and other procedures, and the construction contractor was selected separately for different procedures.

-24 hours continuous operation

The contractor was required to organize the construction day and night, and the headquarters and the supervision company followed up day and night. Working day and night became the new normal of local construction. In order to effectively supervise the construction contractors to complete the construction schedules with guaranteed quality and quantity in time, they discussed the amendment of the penalty clause for the extension of construction in the contract and increased the penalty for the extension of contractor’s construction to urge the contractor to implement the construction plan on a monthly basis.

At the same time, the headquarters of Hierro Peru New District observed the internal, starting by optimizing the on-site construction organization, and organizing the on-site construction day and night.

According to the updated equipment material delivery plan, they changed and arranged the construction schedule and seriously organized and refined the on-site construction plan; the feasibility of construction procedure connection and interpenetration construction was carefully studied area by area and link by link. Each working surface with condition at the site was fully utilized to reduce the contraction period as much as possible; they arranged the headquarters and supervision company personnel to follow up day and night, coordinated and solved the problems in the on-site construction process in time, and minimized the impact on the progress of the project; tracked the shipment of equipment materials at any time, and prepared for possible delays in the supply of equipment and materials in advance.