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(Yicai) Dec. 30 -- Chinese miner Sinomine Resources Group announced it would invest USD786 million in copper mining and rare metal recycling projects in two African countries.
Sinomine will spend USD563 million to develop a mining, beneficiation, and copper smelting project at the Kitumba Copper Mine in Zambia, the Beijing-based firm said in a statement on Dec. 27. The construction period will be one and a half years, with production expected to kick off by the end of 2026.
The copper mining and beneficiation plant will have an annual raw ore processing capacity of 3.5 million tons and will produce copper sulfide and copper oxide concentrates, Sinomine noted, adding that the smelter will have an annual production capacity of 60,000 tons of cathode copper and a by-product output of 110,000 tons of sulfuric acid per year.
Based on the average market prices of the above products over the past three years, the project is expected to achieve annual profits of about USD155 million after reaching full capacity. The project's investment payback period including construction is estimated to be 5.1 years, according to Sinomine.
The Kitumba Copper Mine, located in the Mumbwa district of Zambia's Central province, is an undeveloped open-pit copper mine. In March, Sinomine invested USD58.5 million to acquire a 65 percent stake in the company developing it.
In a separate statement on Dec. 27, Sinomine announced a plan to invest USD223 million to build a recovery facility with an annual industrial waste treatment capacity of 200,000 tons at its Tsumeb smelter in Namibia. The facility will extract rare metals, such as germanium, gallium, and zinc, from the smelter's tailings resources.
The project is expected to generate annual profits of USD53.5 million once it reaches full production. Its payback period including construction is expected to be just over 5.7 years.
The Tsumeb base will serve as Sinomine's multi-metal comprehensive recycling center in South-Central Africa. Leveraging the company's strengths in resource integration, the project will accelerate the development of its rare metals business segment.
Sinomine is a private Chinese mining company mainly focused on lithium resource development. In the first half of the year, its lithium battery materials business contributed nearly 66 percent of its revenue. However, due to the continuous decline in lithium salt prices over the past two years, the revenue from this business segment shrank 41 percent.
Sinomine's shares [SHE: 002738] were trading down 0.3 percent at CNY36.58 (USD5.01) as of 2.20 p.m. in Shenzhen today, after earlier gaining 1.3 percent.
Editor: Futura Costaglione