Vedanta seeks partners to develop Zambia mines it’s regaining

Bloomberg News | July 24, 2024 | 7:23 am Top Companies Africa Asia Cobalt Copper 
Zambia's Konkola Copper Mines liquidator arrested, calls money-laundering charges "baseless"
KCM concentrator. (Image courtesy of Konkola Copper Mines)

Vedanta Resources Ltd., the mining company that billionaire Anil Agarwal founded, is looking for business partners to boost output at the Zambian copper assets it’s regaining control of after years of legal battles.

The company seeks partners to carry out exploration, development and production as part of a $1 billion investment plan at the Konkola Copper Mines assets, it said in calls for expressions of interest in the state-owned Times of Zambia newspaper on Wednesday. The deadline is July 31.

The company lost control of Konkola, or KCM, in 2019 after the government placed the operations under provisional liquidation, accusing Vedanta of lying about expansion plans and not paying enough taxes. That sparked a years-long legal battle until Zambia agreed to the hand assets back. Agarwal sees KCM as a key source of copper for India, which has limited supplies of its own.

Vedanta seeks partners for:

  • Mine exploration to increase reserves and resources to 21 million metric tons of copper equivalent, from 16 million tons;
  • Enhancing cobalt production to increase output to 6,000 tons per year; and
  • Operating and maintaining concentrator plants, a smelter, a refinery and a tailings-leach plant.

(By Matthew Hill and Taonga Mitimingi)

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