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China Molybdenum invests 2.5 billion US dollars to expand Congolese mine
Seetao 2021-08-09 17:08
  • The expansion will include the construction of 3 ore production lines, with an estimated annual output increase of 200,000 tons
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China Molybdenum announced an investment of US$2.51 billion to expand its production capacity at the Tenke Fungurume Mine (TFM) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is expected to go online in 2023, and the expansion project will include the construction of 3 ore production lines. These production lines are expected to increase the average annual copper output of the mine by 200,000 tons and cobalt output by 17,000 tons. China Molybdenum intends to fund the expansion project through its own funds and bank loans.

In July 2021, the company started trial production at another expansion site of the mine, with a design capacity of 3.3 million tons of ore per year. The expansion project is expected to produce 88,500 tons of copper cathode and 7,280 tons of cobalt hydroxide. Covering an area of more than 1,500 kilometers2 in the province of Katanga in the southeastern part of the Congo (DRC), the Tankogulumi mine is one of the highest grade copper and cobalt mines in the world.

The mine produced 182,600 tons of copper and 15,400 tons of cobalt in 2020. China Molybdenum plans to increase copper production to 187,300 tons to 228,900 tons and cobalt production to 16,500 to 20,100 tons in 2021. The company said earlier: "This expansion can increase the daily ore processing capacity by 10,000 tons to 25,000 tons, and the annual output of copper and cobalt will be greatly increased."

In 2016, the company acquired a controlling stake in the Tenke Fungurume mine from the American miner Freeport-McMoRan for US$2.6 billion. Subsequently, China Molybdenum invested an additional US$1.14 billion in 2019 to increase its shareholding in the mine to 80%. Gecamines of the Democratic Republic of Congo holds the remaining 20% of the mine, which produced its first copper cathode in March 2009.

Keywords: international engineering news, foreign engineering project information

In April 2021, China Molybdenum agreed to sell its shares in the Kisanfu copper-cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Hyundai Ampere Technology (CATL) for US$137.5 million. Kisanfu, discovered by Freeport-McMoRan, is a large undeveloped cobalt and copper resource in Lualaba. Kisanfu Assets has a 365Mt resource inventory with grades of 1.72% Cu and 0.85% Co. It contains nearly 6.3Mt copper and 3.1Mt cobalt.Editor/Baohongying

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