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Production Begins At New $2.1B Zambian Copper Mine

Production Begins At New $2.1B Zambian Copper Mine

From BusinessDayLive.

Canada’s First Quantum Minerals on Friday launched production at its $2.1-billion Sentinel copper mine, which has been under construction since June 2012.

The mine is expected to produce 280,000-tonnes to 300,000-tonnes of copper a year at full production from one large low-grade ore body containing 0.51 percent copper, First Quantum said.

Ramp-up to commercial production levels at Sentinel is expected to begin after state power utility Zesco connects electricity to the mine by September, it said.

Although this year and next will be challenging for many mines in Zambia and globally due to low commodity prices, First Quantum hopes to overcome that by improving efficiency, it said.

“The planned 55,000,000-tonnes an annum ore throughput at the new Sentinel mine necessitates the latest in modern mining methods,” it said.

At full production Sentinel will employ 1,788 employees directly through First Quantum subsidiary Kalumbila Minerals with an added 1,276 contractor jobs created by the new mine, it said.

Read more at BusinessDayLive.