| Copper cables manufacturer Zamefta is expanding |
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ajor acquisitions in the mining sector are expected to lead to a long-term presence in Zambia for J&W Investments of Switzerland. Jerry Gorman, Chief Executive Officer of both Luanshya Copper Mines and copper/cobalt producer Chambishi Metals, emphasises J&W’s long-term commitment to Zambia. “We have got two operations here and we are established. We are going to be here for some time to come,” he says.
J&W signed a £4.2 million deal with the government to acquire a majority 85 percent share in the former Roan Antelope Mining Corporation of Zambia (RAMCOZ), whose assets included the Luanshya and Baluba underground mines. Since then the defunct Luanshya mine has been closed and investment is being concentrated on resuming operations at Baluba, which has ore reserves of more than 24 million tons.
J&W, which has mining operations in Kazakhstan, is committed to spending £14 million on refurbishing Baluba. Investment worth a further £16.8 million is scheduled to take place over the next five years. “There are 24 million tons of known reserves here and before that is finished we will find more,” says Mr Gorman. “The main thing now is to get the mine running and make sure we have got a positive cash flow. We are progressing well and have achieved more than we expected.”
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J&W has already revived operations at the Chambishi Metals copper/cobalt mine after acquiring a 90 percent stake held by Anglovaal Mining (Avmin) of South Africa; the remaining 10 percent stake is held by the government. Assets taken over by J&W include a high-tech smelter and leach plant to extract the cobalt and copper from a 20-million ton slag dump.
“The mine was basically bankrupt,” says Mr Gorman. “We purchased it and brought it back to life. A lot of effort went in and we are currently producing around 2,000 tons of ore a day. In the first month of operation we produced 50,000 tons of ore.”
The
mine is expected to be operating at full output by January or February
next year and it is aimed to increase production and consolidate copper
and cobalt production within the next two years.
A firm that has been long-established in the country, Metal Fabricators
of Zambia (ZAMEFTA), recently became a notable success for the government’s
privatisation programme when its flotation of more than 48 million shares
on the Lusaka Stock Exchange was 1.2 times oversubscribed.
Zambia’s sole copper cables manufacturer, ZAMEFTA, is majority owned (51 percent) by the major American copper producer Phelps Dodge. The company’s location in Luanshya in the Copperbelt guarantees it a ready supply of high quality raw materials, which it processes to produce copper rods, wires and cables.
“Transforming the raw copper resource to value-added products calls for increasing market quality,” says Jose Luis Revuelta, the company’s Chief Executive Officer. “Being situated in the Copperbelt enables us to adjust our manufacturing programmes at short notice to suit customer requirements.”
ZAMEFTA is currently undergoing considerable expansion, with major investment in new equipment to boost its capacity. Most of its production goes for export to markets extending from Southern Africa to Europe, Central America, Asia and the Far East. Its customers in the domestic market include power utility ZESCO and telecommunications company ZAMTEL.
Tel: +44 20 76296213, Fax: +44 20 74953707 - [email protected]