Zijin Mining occupies three of the top 10 newly discovered copper projects in the world in the past 20 years, namely, the Camoa-Kakoula Copper Mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Timok Copper and Gold Mine in Serbia and the Qulong Copper Mine in Tibet.
The copper reserves of the above three mines are about 70 million tons, accounting for 39% of the total reserves of 178 million tons of the ten newly discovered copper deposits. Among them, the Camoa-Kakoula copper deposit in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ranks first, exceeding 43.69 million tons. Timok Copper Gold Mine and Qulong Copper Mine ranked fourth and eighth, respectively. In terms of equity, the copper reserves of Zijin Mining's three mines rank first on the list.
Among the ten newly discovered copper mines, except for the three copper mines under Zijin Mining, which will be completed and put into production in 2021, the rest are in the state of pre-feasibility study, general research or exploration. Among them, the Camoa-Kakoula copper mine is expected to become the largest copper mine with the highest grade in the world, with an initial treatment of 3.8 million tons per year, and the copper production capacity will reach 400000 tons per year after the first and second stages of concentrators are put into operation, and the designed production scale of the upper belt of Timok copper and gold deposits is 3.3 million tons per year, and the copper production capacity is expected to exceed 79000 tons per year after completion. As the largest porphyry copper mine in China, Qulong Copper Mine has established the absolute leading position of Zijin Mining in China's copper industry. The mine is built in two phases and has an annual output of 165000 tons of copper after the first phase is completed. S & P also showed that the global copper supply shortage will further intensify by 2030, with a total of 20 copper projects identified for production, with a total designed production capacity of 1.9 million tons of metal.
Copper, as a strategic base metal, is a non-renewable resource, and the global demand for copper continues to increase, but due to the limitations of ore-forming geological conditions, the discovery of copper deposits is becoming more and more difficult. According to S & P, 15 new copper mines were discovered in the world between 2011 and 2020, compared with 87 in the previous decade (2001-2010). The discovery cost per ton was US $318.75 per tonne, 10.3 times that of a decade ago (US $30.85 per tonne). The ten newly discovered copper mines are still dominated by traditional copper deposits such as Chile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ecuador, and most of them are held by established copper mining enterprises such as Anglo-American Resources and Chile's national copper industry.
Since 2020, Zijin Mining has seized the rising channel of copper prices and achieved 345300 tons of mineral copper in the first three quarters. Zijin Mining has a total copper resources of more than 62 million tons, a number of super-large copper mine projects with world-class influence are about to be completed and put into production, and copper production will achieve high growth in the next one to two years.
