Why Luiri is struggling, what they did wrong to swim against the tide????Zambia set to enter world?s top five copper producers. Read below:
Zambia ‒ enters world?s top five copper producers
Lusaka, Zambia --- MININGREVIEW.COM --- 12 July 2011 - Zambia ‒ Africa?s largest copper-mining nation ‒ is set to enter the world?s top five producers as Vale SA First Quantum Minerals Limited and Vedanta Resources Plc lead more than US$6 billion of investment in the Southern African country?s mines.
?If all the planned projects take off, Zambia is expected to overtake Australia and Indonesia to become the fifth-largest copper-producing country in the world by 2013,? said Sophie Chung, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie unit Brook Hunt. The country?s ?positive? investment climate sets it apart from its neighbors, Brook Hunt said in a separate note.
Zambia has pledged not to take mines into state hands or impose windfall taxes, even as Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the north, and Zimbabwe to the south, study measures to boost mining revenue as commodity prices climb. Zambia?s copper output, some 681,000t last year, may double to 1.44Mt by 2015, according to Brook Hunt.
?Many mining companies have managed to enter into extremely good development deals in their contracts,? Jacob Lushinga, an economist at the Economics Association of Zambia, said last month. ?The agreements include incentives such as favourable power rates and unrestricted ownership,? he added.
The only other African country among the top 10 copper producers is the DRC, ranked 10th, while Chile, China, Peru and the U.S. are the largest, according to 2010 data from Edinburgh- based Wood Mackenzie.
Canada?s First Quantum has said it may spend US$1.9 billion on its Trident and Kansanshi mines in Zambia after losing the Kolwezi copper project in the DRC in a 2009 rights battle with the government. Vale?s joint venture with African Rainbow Minerals Ltd. will invest US$1 billion in Zambia?s Konkola North project, while Vedanta?s Konkola Copper Mines unit plans to spend about US$1 billion over the next three years and Glencore International Plc will invest US$500 million in its Zambian Mopani operation.
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