Despite the fact that the Democratic Republic of Congo’s
biggest State-owned mining company, Gecamines, was the subject of
an ex-parte court order requested by First Quantum, of Canada, and
its partner at the Kipushi zinc mine, the South African-listed
Kumba Resources, in Belgium recently, the company says that it is
going ahead with the Kipushi mine call for proposals.
The court order prohibits Gecamines from breaching the
confidentiality obligations existing under a current
confidentiality agreement. Gecamines was also prohibited, subject
to a €3-million penalty, from “disclosing to any third
party the confidential information and studies produced by First
Qrole of lube oil pump in coal millsuantum and Kumba”.
The court case followed after Gecamines last month called for
companies to tender for the development of the mine, saying that
“no agreement has been concluded with First Quantum or
Kumba”. But the two companies warned the inter- national
mining community that they would “actively” protect
their rights to the Kipushi mistone crushers plant in west bengalne and argued that there could be a
violation of their rights if Gecamines held discussions with third
parties relating to the joint operation of the mine or the transfer
of any interest in the asset.
The Belgian court also authorised the two companies to take further
emergency legal proceedings against Gecamines in the event of a
breach of the confidentiality agreement. Spstone crusher manufacturers in south africaeaking exclusively to
Mining Weekly, Gecamines CEO Paul Fortin insists that the company
will go ahead with the Kipushi mine project as originally
planned. He says that of the 30 companies that had shown
interest in partnering Gecamines, 15 have paid the required deposit
of $25 000, adding that six of the companies are from South
Africa.
Fortin says that theprocess of ore seperation next step is for the tenders to be analysed by
a still-to-be-formed Gecamines committee.
According to Gecamines representative Leon Kalasa, the
joint-venture partner will be selected based on proven credibility
on the international market, ability to mobilise financial and
human resources to realise recovery programmes, expertise in mining
management and copper and zinc extraction as well as ab500t h capacity feeder price chinaility to
propose and finalise a plan for the mine and concentrator at
Kipushi. Gecamines’ input will include qualified labour, a
mine with an important geological potential of mainly zinc and
copper as well as other minerals, such as cadmium, germanium, gold
and silver, a concentrator close to the mineral-extraction site and
road and rail infrastructure.
Kalasa says that the purpose of this partnership is to upgrade the
production facilities, improve production management that
streamlines quality assurance, modernises production tools and
develops the entity while also maxi-mising revenues.
The site office is situated 30 km south-west of Lubumbashi, in the
province of Katanga and near the Zambian border. Kipushi was
operational from 1926 until 1993. The production achieved during
the 1980s was in the region of 60 000 t of zinc and 25 000 t of
copper. The mine was closed because of the weak prices of zinc in
relation to the cost of production, but today the price of zinc is
around $3 000/t, and the copper price is about $7 000/t and the
interest to produce these metals is evident, as the demand for
nonferrous metals remains very strong. Kalasa is on record as
saying that the geo- logical survey and drilling carried out to a
depth of 1 385 m highlighted reserves of about 6 000 000 t of zinc
and 500 000 t of copper.