Ivanhoe wins bid for Chambishi mine

Privately owned Ivanhoe Capital has been awarded a contract to reopen the Chambishi copper mine in Zambia.

The company will become the joint-venture partner of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM), of which 60% is owned by the Zambian government and 27% by Anglo American.

Ivanhoe, which was awarded the contract following an international tender for work, will form a Zambian company in which it will hold an 85% interest, with the remainder held by ZCCM. The new company will be responsible for acquiring the mine and concentrator, as well as a mining licence and surface rights.

Ivanhoe will be required to finance a bankable feasibility study and the cost of returning the mine to production.

“Ivanhoe now has a unique opportunity to participate in the revitalization of the world-famous Zambian copper belt,” says Robert Friedland, president of Ivanhoe Capital. “We are committed to completing a bankable feasibility study and to establishing Chambishi as a world-class, low-cost producer of copper with gold byproduct.”

Friedland is confident that, with the influx of capital investment and new technology, operating expenses at the mine can be lowered and annual copper production raised to 40,000 tonnes.

The mine is 20 km north of Kitwe in the Zambian copper belt. Before the country’s poor economic climate forced its closure in 1987, Chambishi was producing 2.5 million tonnes per year. Reserves stand at 33.5 million tonnes grading 2.55% copper per tonne, though an additional reserve to the west is estimated to contain 47 million tonnes grading 2.27% copper. Also, a resource 10 km southwest of the main orebody, but still within the Chambishi licence area, is believed to contain 69.7 million tonnes grading 2.59% copper and 0.13% cobalt.

A feasibility study by ZCCM in 1994 indicated that Chambishi was capable of producing 2 million tonnes per year grading 2.25% copper.