Copperbelt Energy Company (CEC) will spend $60 million to increase power supply to copper mines by 40 percent and plans to list on the Lusaka bourse, a senior executive said on Wednesday. Hanson Sindowe, the executive chairman of CEC, told Reuters that the firm was upgrading its power distribution equipment and machinery, which was over 50 years old, to maintain supply to the copper and cobalt mines in the the country.
“We will spend $60 million between 2007 and 2010 to upgrade our system because of rising demand of electricity from the copper mines,” Sindowe said in an interview. He noted that power demand was rising after the opening of new mines on the CopperBelt and North Western provinces.
“Our total power supply capacity is 550 megawatts and this will go up by 40 percent in the next two to three years,” he added.
Major new mining projects include the Konkola Deep Copper Mine Project (KDMP) and the Lumwana copper mine, which plans to start producing 165,000 tonnes of copper starting in 2008.
The KDMP, which is part of the Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) and is also expected to come on stream in 2008, will raise KCM’s total annual output to more than 500,000 tonnes per year from the 2007 target of 200,000 tonnes of finished copper.
Sindowe said a new power sub-station would be built for KDMP, which will become the largest copper mine in the country.
Part of CEC’s upgrade-releated investment will be used to modernise power lines that connect Zambia and the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
CEC operates a 800 km powerline that supplies electricity to copper mines and acts as a reserve line for Zambia to import power from the Congo during a crisis. The firm purchases electricity from state power utility Zesco.
Sindowe said the CEC also planned to float 20 percent of its shares on the Lusaka Stock Exchange and award a five-percent stake to its employees through a separate share ownership programme and a 1-percent stake to a community trust.
CEC, which plans to expand its 320-person workforce, has applied to the Securities Exchange Control (SEC) and the LuSE to list 20 percent of its shares on the bourse by August, he said.
“The listing should take place between July and August. Currently we are dealing with various requirements for the listing and a prospectus should be ready soon.”
The Zambia Energy Corporation (Zam-En), a consortium of local and foreign businesses, owns 77 percent of the CEC shares and will have a 51-percent stake following the CEC listing on the bourse.
The state-run ZCCM-IH will keep its 20 percent stake in CEC and minority Zambian shareholders will divide the rest.
What is the liquidity of shares on LUSE?
Kayata, you have to visit the LuSE building or call them to to get that answer. Not even their website can help you on that one. What a shame in this age. Wonder why our IT use in financial sector is so poor. People just know how to put websites with their company history and the picture of their Managing Director..how Stone Age!!
Anyway I can guarantee that the volume is low and so liquidity on LuSE. What they need to do is invest in the IT infrastructure and web enable their trading platform so that foreign buyers can find it easy to come in and trade. Foreign buyers are the biggest drivers of volume & liquidity of the overall index. But as it standards now , LuSE will remain a toy it is today.
Chanda Phiri,i will agree with you,companies are just floating shares on LuSE without knowing the purpose and utilising the advantage of floating shares on the exchange. Besides that too,telecommunication expenses from Zamtel are too high,hence there is a need to commercialise Zamtel & Zesco so we can have quality of services that we are receiving. Chanda Phiri, it takes 3 phone extensions to have that answered when you call LUSE ie Reception,Secretary to Manager…. Bureaucracy.
Just on one simple answer…High or Low or It depends on the company. But overall performance is bad and we this is where the govt is lagging behind in supporting local companies. And that “Communications Authority” who only think Mwembeshi is there for security purposes.
#3 Plz to jump to the frying an like a rat, when u talk of communication to be poor, u quickly talk of commerciaslizing zesco. Zambians, will much suffering do we still want to undergo due to the crap of commercilization of sensitive parastatals? Look at the zambia airways! Its gone and nothing will be there in its place. Dont u realise how easier it is and much beficial to the masses it plays, when the sensitive companies are under state control? I know u can tell me u did not mean privatisation, but thats what i got out of it all pragmatically.
Patience is a virtual and in being patient we learn, no dout you all are right and very intelligible on you deductions but I find that we as Zambian have developed a very bad dependance on foreign investment or investor we are always looking to others to better our living when we have the power in our own hands in any case I believe that any person should always seek self improvement in order to better ones position in life as time passes I should strive to urn more and develope an attitude to invest in myself and grow. The greatest resource any country has including ourse is it’s own people. We need to start believing in ourselves. We need to push the limitations of our various situations and strive to add value to our own lives before we look for an outsider, after all a foreign investor can only invest were he find value for his investment we are valuable as Zambians and can add value to our lives, products we will be able add value to our nation. I love Zambia and may God bless Zed
#5, as much as we dream to depend on ourselves, we should strive at the same time to capture most of our economical sources of income at national level and reduce the levels of tax consequently. as much as most of us are aware, that 80% of zambia’s economy depends on copper, we only reap 20% of copper sales anually. Does this make sense when we even go so pround to blow trumpets in the air to the world that” Oh, this year we had rich copper production and sales!!’ I personally find that to be nonsensicle…the matter would be much pleasing if we reaped much more than the meagre 20% of the copper sales. why should even boast that we got mineral resources when we all surrendered them off?????Look at the oil rhetorical newspaper reports, ‘Oh yeeeh we got oil in Zambia’ What press release has GRZ passed following that???We are just too blunt now that we cant ran any serious big industry…All zedianz can do now is sit back, relax and wait for our Lord to come? Ñ’mon pipo, we gotta rise!!!