Zambia expects to produce more than one million tonnes of copper this year after revising its 2017 copper production owing to stable power supply, Mines Permanent Secretary Paul Chanda says.
Mr. Chanda said the copper production figure was revised upwards to 800,000 tonnes from 786,731 tonnes announced by Bank of Zambia last month.
Zambia produced 774,290 tonnes of copper in 2016.
“We actually hit 800,000 tonnes last year and we anticipate with certainty that we are going to reach a million tonnes or more this year,” Mr. Chanda told Journalist in an interview.
Mr. Chanda said with electric cars whose major ingredient is copper coming on the market, demand for the metal is expected to remain high and this is a big incentive for mining companies.
He said projects such as a new shaft by Mopani Copper Mines (MCM) owned by Glencore and an expansion project by China Non-Ferrous Africa Mining (NFCA) would start production this year and further boost copper output in 2018 and beyond.
More money in your pockets
Not Zambia, but Foreign Corporations have set the target. The profit is theirs and we will get our usual bread crumbs (aka Tax).
Even projections of how much tax they will earn they cant only interested in the fact that more unprocessed ore will leave the nation,at the end of the day our children will only inherit huge holes.Even when tax is paid it is for government to enjoy servicing and purchase of expensive vehicles and looting.Dont excite us Mr Chanda high copper/cobalt prices only make sense with reponsible governance like when Mwanawasa was in power right now only koswe characters will celebrate as you pay huge taxes while koswes have even refused to pay back salaries as ordered by Concourt.
Sadly the main beneficiaries will not be the ordinary Zambian, but the mining houses. We really need to find a way of zambianising the mining sector. imagine if all the mines were Zambian owned….All the forex would not be externalised. And they would support local industry. but sadly most of the money is going out and the industries that are benefiting are mostly South African
“Mr. Chanda said with electric cars whose major ingredient is copper coming on the market, demand for the metal is expected to remain high and this is a big incentive for mining companies” – Bwana PS, Ministers and your appointing authority the President, THIS IS THE MAIN REASON WHY YOU SHOULD RELOOK THE TAXATION OF THE MINES!! A country like the DRC which looks more disorganized than us has REVISED TAXES UPWARDS and introduced a HEFTY WINDFALL TAX of 50% on PROFITS when the PRICES REACH A CERTAIN THRESHOLD!! Yet here in Zambia WE ARE BUSY MUSING ABOUT PRODUCTION FIGURES THAT DO NOT TRANSLATE IN CHANGING THE WELL BEING OF THE CITIZEN. WHAT HAVE YOU EATEN FROM THE MINES TO FEAR THEM SO MUCH??
So what? It wont make a difference. Will still have potholes all over, unkempt grass everywhere.
So now one million tonnes of this raw material is to be exported per year. We know Copper is a wasting asset, and yet not a word about attracting value addition within the Country. This simply means our future generations will inherit big empty holes in the ground sooner than initially forecasted.
By now, Zambia should have been A HUB OF COPPER-RELATED MANUFACTURING, right from small cottage industries all the way up, so much so that our neighbours like Congo DR should have found it attractive to sell their copper to us. We should have been talking about what quantities of copper we have kept in reserve, much like developed countries like UK and USA talk about Oil reserves they have, while at the same time buying oil from other Countries.
The good news is that, according to mining…
…… mining journals, Zambia is just starting the second half (to use the football language) in its copper mining. So, its not too late to leverage itself into a position of attracting value-addition, and causing others like Congo DR who has more deposits, to sell their Copper to us.
Let us always remember: ‘ If it is to be, it is up to us’.
I thought such a statement would come from the mining compsnies themselves? Or is the PS their new spokesman?
It will still see wrong in everything.
@BRABUS… Your sentiments (about value addition) are genuine however; it is economically not feasible to set up relevant manufacturing industry considering the level of economic activity in our country let alone Africa!
Demand for copper has soared in tandem with countries’ industrialization process, given copper’s extensive use in infrastructure (e.g., plumbing, telecommunication wiring, and building materials) and manufacturing equipment (e.g. electric vehicles).
Annual global consumption of refined copper goes over 21 million tons and is divided into 5 major consumption groups: equipment, construction, infrastructure, transport, and industrial.
In 2016, world copper imports totaled US$123 billion. China is the world’s largest consumer of refined copper; consuming about 50…
…percent ($33.2 billion) share of global copper consumption followed by the EU ($36.3 billion), North America ($11.6 billion) and the Middle East ($4.1 billion). The entire Africa imported a paltry $2.4 billion worth of copper. This was largely by the relatively industrialized countries Egypt, Morocco and South Africa.
Currently, Chile is the world’s top producer of copper, followed by other mining capitals such as China, Peru, United States, and Australia. Ironically, we can’t talk of manufacturing industries in either Chile or Peru. They are in the same quagmire we are in; THIRD WORLD.
The big boys (major economies) would rather continue buying Chile, Indonesia, DRC and Zambia’s raw copper and stockpile it in sufficient quantities (3 years stock in certain cases) to guarantee…
…availability of required equipment/spares to service their building and construction sectors. They also feel compelled to put up sophisticated manufacturing industries in their own countries to alleviate freight costs and avoid heartaches of unfulfilled commitments due to disruptions in the production chain such as political conflict (DRC) or work stoppages (Chile and Asia) or lack of stability and clarity on mining policies (DRC & Zed) and of course, most importantly, they have an obligation to create employment to the citizenry!!!!!!
BRABUS, whereas we can realistically forget about our lofty dream of becoming A HUB OF COPPER-RELATED MANUFACTURING, we must take heart that we do have small cottage industries in electric cable manufacturing (ZAMEFA in Luanshya and now Indian owned…
…Neelkanth in Masaiti) and a host of tooling and machining foundries and workshops on the Copperbelt. The problem is that these companies do not thrive as they are not adequately supported by GRZ!
Mining houses rush back to their native countries to get spares or parts instead of buying local. We need a TRUMP of our own to slap import duties and scrap the existing waiver on importation of spares and services that can be obtained locally.