RE: ERG in DRC29 Dec 2023 16:24
Chambishi was definitely on the cards at one stage, Leon even referenced an interview with President Hichilema where he talked about the refinery re-opening once the tax situation was resolved. As recently as the announcement of the Mopani deal, Paul Kabuswe stated that Chambishi would soon be re-opening.
I’m not sure anymore if Jubilee is going to be directly involved in that, with the IRH JV we will now have access to additional refining capacity at the Nkana plant. I guess it depends on the scale of ambition for IRH and Jubilee. With the plan to rapidly expand the modular copper oxide concentrators we could potentially fill the additional cathode refining capacity available at Nkana, what then happens with the concentrate from the tailings concentrators when they eventually come online? Maybe they see Chambishi as necessary for future expansion? Maybe it’s for the processing of the Mufulira S l a g? It could be part of the governments wider plans to manufacture EV batteries in Zambia, then extra cobalt refining capacity makes sense.
Anyway I think we should find out something on that front before too long.