SMM, June 24 / PRNewswire-Asianet /-
According to the latest news from SMM, according to CEO, a Chinese non-ferrous African company, China Nonferrous Group is willing to take over Zambia's KCM Mining Industry. Earlier, Eurasia Resources Group and China Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. have expressed interest in buying Konkola Copper Mine and discussed the possibility of an acquisition with the local government.
The conflict between the Zambian government and local mining companies has been escalating this year, especially Vendanta, which has been opposed by a number of mining companies as the Zambian government tries to increase taxes on local mining companies to increase government revenue and ease the Zambian government's debt crisis.
China has been committed to establishing good cooperative relations with Africa. On September 3, 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the "eight major actions" of industry promotion, facilities connectivity, trade facilitation, green development, capacity-building, health and health, people-to-people exchanges, peace and security at the 2018 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit in Beijing. China is willing to provide US $60 billion in support to Africa in the form of government assistance, financial institutions and enterprise investment and financing. Therefore, it would be most ideal for the Zambian government to choose Chinese enterprises with friendly relations to take over the Zambian copper resources.
At present, as a result of interference by the Zambian government in liquidation, KCM has informed its customers to stop delivering June orders, with an annual production capacity of 310000 tons of KCM. And data show that Zambia's KCM mining industry produced only 860t of copper this month as of June 11, well below its monthly production target of 12500 tonnes.
With the exception of KCM, the production of some mining enterprises in Zambia is affected by the domestic government, which is also one of the factors affecting the continuous reduction of crude copper processing fees in the market recently. According to SMM, as of May 31, the transaction range of crude copper processing fees for CIF imports was between US $160 and US $170 / tonne. With the increasing intervention of the Zambian regional government, crude copper supply will continue to be affected, and processing fees still have a downward trend.
(SMM Kwong Tze-si)
