Ivanhoe’s Kipushi zinc mine in the DRC officially reopens
The restart marked exactly a century since the mine first went into production.
Zambia may be home to the world’s third-largest copper mine after a startup backed by billionaire Bill Gates discovered huge deposits of the metal, the country’s president said.
San Francisco Bay Area-based KoBold Metals, which uses artificial intelligence to explore for materials key to the green-energy transition, said this week that its discovery at the Mingomba project far surpasses existing operations in top producer Chile by copper grade.
“It won’t be just the largest mine in Zambia, but it will be one of the largest mines in the world,” President Hakainde Hichilema said Thursday in an interview outside Lusaka, the capital. “Maybe one of the top three largest mines in the world. We believe it will produce well over — when it’s fully operational — 500,000 to 600,000 metric tons.”
Escondida in Chile, the world’s biggest copper mine, produced more than a million metric tons of the metal last year and Grasberg, in Indonesia, the next largest about 770,000 metric tons in 2022.
KoBold President Josh Goldman compared the Zambian mines potential to that of the Kamoa-Kakula, developed by Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. and China’s Zijin Mining Group Co. just across the border in Democratic Republic of Congo. That mine produced almost 400,000 tons of copper last year and at full capacity will be able to produce 620,000 tons annually.
KoBold, whose shareholders include Breakthrough Energy Ventures – backed by Gates and Jeff Bezos – as well as T. Rowe Price Group Inc., Bond Capital, Andreesen Horowitz and Equinor ASA, has been drilling at its Zambian permit for little over a year. Michael Bloomberg, the majority owner of Bloomberg News’s parent Bloomberg LP, is an investor in Breakthrough, according to the company’s website.
The discovery has “huge” implications for Zambia, Hichilema said.
Total production of the metal in Africa’s second biggest copper producer fell to below 700,000 tons last year. A new operation that could nearly double that will provide a boost toward Hichilema’s target of lifting the national output to three million tons by 2031. KoBold, which hasn’t commented on potential production levels, estimates it would cost about $2 billion to build a mine at the Mingomba project.
“When we bring new mines like that it means we are moving toward the three million tons,” Hichilema said.
(By Taonga Mitimingi and Matthew Hill)
8 Comments
William Lombe
This is the something that needs a big celebration to a poverty struggling country of ours. Sadly most African rich with minerals countris have their people benifiting nothing only for the leaders pockets and luxurious lives while people die with hunger, no infrastructure development, and nothing fir the uplifting of the citizens. High taxing on poor people but low taxing on huge rich companies that milk our land.
Its a shame, our sadly no one is willing to come to the rescue of the poor citizens.
I hope the discovery will be different for Mother Zambia our lovely rich County.
Chanda
Please May this benefit our country, don’t exploit us no more your countries are already rich 😭
Antony Francis
Corruption is the enemy of the Zambian people not the mining companies and always has been.
Peter
Corruption is the enemy of the Zambian people not the mining companies and always has been.
Mukufute Mukelabai
The biggest question is what is going to be the benefits to Zambians?
Boyson Siwale
We pray to God for guidance in our plans
#Kenny
So the 2billion cost estimate of investment no body has that much in zambia
Dadley Makeche
Nobody in zambia has that kind. Probably the other you know who looted.