Oct 22, 2012. /Lesprom Network/. Minerals Technologies Inc. has signed an agreement with Shandong Sun Paper Industry Joint Stock Co. Ltd. for the construction of a 100,000-metric ton satellite precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) plant at Sun Paper's paper mill in Yanzhou City, Shandong Province, China, as the company said in the press release received by Lesprom Network. The satellite facility, which will become operational in the 1Q 2014, will produce OPACARB® A40, a coating-grade PCC, for Sun Paper's lightweight coated, coated fine paper and coated paperboard grades. "We are very pleased to be working with a premier company like Sun Paper, which is the largest privately owned paper business in China," said Joseph C. Muscari, chairman and CEO of Minerals Technologies. Mr. Muscari and Mr. Li Hongxin, chairman of Sun Paper, signed a long-term relationship pact focused on broader technical and process cooperation in addition to the new satellite supply contract. Mr. Muscari added: "This agreement is also a major advancement of our strategy to expand our PCC business in China, where paper production continues to grow between five and seven percent a year." Shandong Sun Paper Industry Joint Stock Co. Ltd, established in 1982, is China's largest privately owned papermaker and producer of premium coated packaging board. Minerals Technologies Inc. is a resource- and technology-based growth company that develops, produces and markets worldwide a broad range of specialty mineral, mineral-based and synthetic mineral products and related systems and services.