The Mingomba copper mining project in Zambia will be developed with 150 million dollars from California-based exploration company KoBold Metals.
According to Reuters, the Mingomba project is a partnership between the Zambian state-backed miner ZCCM-IH and the Australian private equity firm EMR Capital.
According to KoBold Metals, Mingomba holds 247 million tonnes of ore with an average grade of 3.64 percent copper and has the potential to become “one of the world’s top-tier mines.”
In Washington, D.C., at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the business made the planned investments public.
President HAKAINDE HICHILEMA informed investors that Zambia is open for business when he announced the agreement at the conference.
The investment, according to President HICHILEMA, is for the benefit of the rest of the globe as it struggles with climate change, not KoBold, ZCCM, or Zambia.
The agreement, which will give KoBold a controlling interest in Mingomba, is anticipated to be finalized in the first quarter of 2019.
By 2032, the government wants to increase the nation’s annual copper production from the current level of about 850 thousand tonnes to 3 million tonnes.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate and technology fund established by Microsoft’s Bill Gates and supported by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Virgin’s Richard Branson, is one of KoBold’s investors.
