"It is expected that by the end of this month, the local copper inventory of about 240,000 mt will be shipped." On the evening of September 5, a reporter from the cls.cn learned from Zhou Jun, Vice President of CMOC Group in charge of African business, that since the export restrictions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were lifted in May, logistics returned to normal, and logistics plans and routes are being optimized to accelerate the digestion of local inventories. In addition, the first batch of copper and cobalt products exported to China from the company's KFM copper and cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will also arrive at Ningbo Port in the near future.
In this regard, insiders in the industry revealed to cls.cn that more than half of CMOC Group's copper products previously stranded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are expected to be sold to China, and are expected to arrive in China for sale in batches, and most of them are under long-term contracts. It will have little impact on the current market.
At the same time, a reporter from cls.cn learned from a senior executive of a large cobalt company that CMOC Group’s domestic arrivals in September will also include some cobalt products. Under the current low cobalt price, it may have a certain impact on the cobalt market.
In August 2021, announced that it passed the investment proposal for the TFM copper-cobalt mixed mine project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This expansion plan led to a royalty dispute at the TFM copper-cobalt mine. After reaching a consensus in April this year, export restrictions on the Democratic Republic of the Congo were also relaxed in May, and copper and cobalt products that had been stranded there have successively left port for sale.
According to data announced by CMOC Group, the company's copper inventory at TFM+KFM in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the first half of the year was 240,700 mt, and its cobalt inventory was 29,500 mt. Based on the recent copper price of approximately $8,000/mt and cobalt price of $15/lb, the total value of the current inventory of copper and cobalt products is close to $3 billion.
Regarding the production capacity planning of the Democratic Republic of the Congo project, Zhou Jun said that as of the fourth quarter of this year, TFM will have five production lines fully operational, forming an ore processing capacity of 20 million mt per year. “Among them, the oxidized mineral production line in the eastern area of TFM achieved trial production on August 30, and the construction of the mixed ore production line in the eastern area with a designed capacity of 5.6 million mt/year is about to be completed. It is estimated that TFM's overall copper metal output is expected to reach 450,000 mt in 2024.
As for the KFM mine, Zhou Jun said that the mine has reached full production after being put into operation in the second quarter of this year. In August, the copper metal output was about 14,000 mt. In 2024, KFM plans to produce 150,000 mt of copper.
Based on the above estimated data, CMOC's copper metal output in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will reach about 600,000 mt next year.
This means that, following Zijin Mining, CMOC Group may become the second Chinese company to rank among the top ten copper producers in the world. According to public information, as of 2022, among the world's top ten copper companies, Zijin Mining's copper output that year was approximately 670,000 mt, ranking seventh; the tenth place was Polish National Copper Company, with a copper output of 463,000 mt.
Zhou Jun also told reporters that the TFM and KFM projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have great resource potential. In the future, as the local power supply bottleneck problem is solved, CMOC may have further expansion plans.
It is understood that under the influence of overseas inflation, labor, energy and other costs in mining are also rising. In this regard, relevant people from CMOC Group said that the impact of inflation has caused an increase in mining costs. This is a common problem faced by the industry, but it is generally controllable. Under the current price, the company's mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo still have a lot of room for profit.
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