Chambishi Copper Smelter


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Owner	Chambishi Copper Smelter
Location	Off Kitwe Chingola Road Multi Facility Economic Zone Chambishi 10100 Kitwe Nkana Zambia
Background
Website	www.ccs.com.zm
Plant	Plant 1	Plant 2
Coordinates*	12° 39' 27" S, 28° 6' 4" E	12° 39' 29" S, 28° 6' 3" E
Type of Plant	Metallurgical	Metallurgical
Gas Source	Copper Smelter	Copper Smelter
Plant Capacity	670,000 MTPA (total)	-
SA/DA	DA	DA
Status	Operating	-
Year Built	2009	2014
Technology	-	-
Contractor	-	-
Remarks	-	-
Pictures
Pictures
General	Chambishi Copper Smelter Company Limited is the first large-scaled modern pyro metallurgical copper smelting project established overseas by China. CCS is owned by two shareholders. China Non Ferrous Metal Mining(Group) Co. Ltd. (CNMC) with 60% shares and Yunnan Copper (Group) Co. Ltd. (YCC) with 40% shares.CCS was successfully registered in Zambia on 19th July, 2006. On February 4th, 2007, the CCS plan was unveiled by the Former President of People’s Republic of China Mr. Hu Jintao and The Late Zambian President Dr. Levy Mwanawasa SC. in Lusaka. CCS adopted “Top-submerged Lance Smelting Technology-Electric furnace-Peirce Smith (P-S) converter-Anode Casting process” to produce copper blister/anode and “Double-contact, Double-absorption” to produce sulphuric acid. The first phase of the project started in 2006 which was completed in 3 years and production commenced in 2009.On, 19th October 2009, following the successful trial operations that had been undertaken, CCS was commissioned by former president of the Republic of Zambia, Rupiah Bwezani Banda. CCS currently has a local labour force of over 1600 employees.
News	September 25, 2019 - Chambishi Copper Smelter Limited (CCS) has dispatched an all Zambian team of Smelter masonry experts from its Equipment Technical Department to its sister company, Lualaba Copper Smelter in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The team is comprised of 10 local employees who have undergone on-the-job training at CCS in masonry works. The team is being dispatched to LCS to assist in constructing of the smelter furnace for the next 2 months. While at Lualaba the team will also train Congolese workforce in masonry works. CCS Deputy Chief Executive officer Li Jun said, “This is the first time that CCS has sent a technical service team composed wholly of Zambian employees to go to another country,” Mr Li said. He said this during the dispatching ceremony for 10 local personnel to Lualaba operation in Chambishi, he added that the team of brick masonry from maintenance section would undertake works in the smelter furnaces. Mr Li said CCS and its sister company was committed to lead the way in facilitating skills transfer in the mining industry being a good corporate citizen. He said initially Zambia had very few dedicated smelting masonry talents adding that everything started from the scratch at CCS. “However, CCS insisted that all the Zambian personnel be trained independently in accordance with the Chinese technology and standards and after years of hard work ,this team has grown from a small team to a larger one of over 20 qualified and experienced personnel ,” he said. Mr Li said now the team could undertake all the company’s masonry work of metallurgical furnaces and kiln independently without Chinese supervision. Since, then he said CCS had cultivated a large number of professional s and technical talents for smelting, maintenance and other sections. Meanwhile CCS Assistant Chief Executive Officer, Zhang Xingwang said the copper processing facility in the DRC will be commissioned before the end of this year. “The project commenced in 2015 and it will be up and running next month, as a sister company for CCS, LCS is going to extend and develop the business of CCS and it is the first large-scaled pyro-metallurgical smelter in the DRC,” Mr Zhang said. Human Resources manager Irene Tembo said CCS was committed to empower its employees with requisite latest technology to drive the company’s vision. Team leader Mubotu Cheba said his team was thankful to management for giving them an opportunity to showcase and exchange their knowledge outside the country. April 23, 2012 - CHAMBISHI Copper Smelter (CCS) says it has embarked on an expansion programme in a bid to double its 150,000 tonnes annual production of blister copper. Speaking when mines deputy minister Richard Musukwa visited the smelter last Wednesday, CCS deputy managing director Du Xing Rong said the increase in its annual production capacity to about 300,000 tonnes of blisters and 340,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid was expected to satisfy rising demand. Rong said the company was committed to ensuring that the US$300 million dollar worth of investment at the smelter contributes significantly to national development through job creation, remitting statutory revenues and corporate social responsibility. He said the investors in CCS were also pleased that the smelter was able to produce high quality sulphuric acid as another main product. "Regarding blister copper, we sell our products to different countries like China, India, South Korea and European countries. These are main consumer centres of copper products in the world while sulphuric acid is sold to various companies within Zambia and the DR Congo," said Rong. He said CCS had managed to create about 1,000 jobs for Zambians and another 300 indirect jobs through companies contracted to work at the mine. Rong said the company greatly improved on the copper recovery rate to 98 per cent and the sulphur dioxide recovery rate. He said due to the good relationship and support CCS enjoyed with other local companies such as Lumwana Mine which was the biggest copper concentrate supplier, Chibuluma and Luanshya (CNMC) mines, management was confident that the company would continue to register significant growth. And Musukwa said the PF government had highly valued Chinese investment in the country's mining sector. "We hold this investment in very high esteem because it is coming from nothing. You put up this massive infrastructure and you are processing copper blister from large mining operations. We will support such investments because we want this to add value to our economy and create more jobs," he said. Musukwa said CCS management should begin to look at other investments that would enable the company to have its own feed for the smelter as a way of creating opportunities for growth. March 26, 2011 - At least 600 workers at Zambia's Chinese-owned Chambishi Copper Smelter ended their strike action over a wage dispute to allow the resumption of labor talks, a union officials told Dow Jones Newswires on Saturday. The workers agreed to end the strike action to allow the resumption of talks over a labor dispute, Sikufela Mundia, the President of the National Union of Miners and Allied Workers said by telephone from Kitwe, on the Copperbelt provinces. "Labor talks with management will resume on Monday, the workers have agreed to end the strike," he said, adding that the negotiations would not resume while workers were still on strike. The 150,000 tons-a-year smelter, which had halted output Thursday, is now expected to resume operations, Mundia said. The workers went on strike after rejecting a 12% pay rise offered by management last week, demanding a 50% pay increment. It was feared that a lengthy closure of the smelter was likely to hurt operations of several mining companies who treat their concentrates from the plant. Those companies include Toronto-listed Equinox Minerals Ltd.(EQN.T), which owns Lumwana Copper Mines in Zambia's North Western province; First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (FM.T), owners of Kansanshi Copper Mines; South Africa-based Metores Ltd. (MTX.JO), owners of Chibuluma Copper Mines; and NCFA Mining's Chambishi Copper Mines. Last month, China Nonferrous Metals Co.(8306.HK), owners of the plant, announced that it had started a $250 million expansion program aimed at doubling copper output to 300,000 tons a year next year. Spurred by a global price rally, investments in Zambia's copper mining continue to soar, last year, output grew 17% on year to reach a historic record of around 820,000 tons. Zambia's annual copper production is poised to hit 2 million tons in the next five years. February 21, 2011 - Chambishi Copper Smelter has embarked on a US$250 million expansion programme at its Copperbelt plant in a bid to double its 150,000 tonnes production of blisters annually starting next year. Chambishi Copper Smelter deputy chief executive officer Fan Wei told Steel Guru that the increase in its annual production capacity to about 300,000 tonnes of blisters and 340,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid was expected to satisfy rising demand. He said the company had engaged some state of the art “ISA technology” from Australia to satisfy its customer list that includes Lumwana Copper Mines, Luanshya Mine, NFCA and Chibuluma. Wei said the expansion program was already on course although he regretted that the company did not have its own mine benefiting from its copper processing plant. And Chambishi Copper Smelter said it would remain committed to improving its environmental protection measures. In a recent assessment report to the Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ), the company stated that it aimed at reducing or maximising on the amount of effluent discharge into the natural environment. The company said it planned to improve on the copper recovery rate to 98 per cent and the sulphur dioxide recovery rate emitted into the environment to nine per cent. According to the report, construction of the concentrator unit was underway, comprising a slag cooling system, crusher milling plant, floatation circuits and modification of auxiliary facilities. October 23, 2009 - Reuters reported that Zambia's Chinese owned Chambishi smelter plans to double processing capacity for blister copper to 300,000 tonnes in 2010 due to higher demand to use the facility by mining firms. The government said that smelter capacity in Zambia falls short of demand for processing copper concentrate into blister copper. Mr Lewis Mulenga spokesman of Chambishi smelter said that “We plan to double production to at least 300,000 tonnes of blister copper in 2010 to do that we will have to expand the plant.” Foreign mining companies including Kansanshi mine owned by South Africa's Metorex recently joined Equinox Minerals Lumwana mine in using the Chambishi smelter for processing copper concentrate. Mr Rupiah Banda president of Zambia said that Chambishi a joint venture of China Non-ferrous Metals Corporation and Yunnan Copper Industry was initially treating copper from NFC Africa. Mr Banda said that the smelter had created more than 600 new jobs in the mining sector, the country's economic lifeblood. June 22, 2009 - Enya Holdings BV will operate Zambia's largest cobalt producer Chambishi Metals Plc which was shutdown in December last year, mines minister Maxwell Mwale said on Monday. Chambishi Metals Plc was part of the Luanshya Copper Mines (LCM), which also operated the Baluba copper mine. Before shutting down, Chambishi had planned to spend $354-million to develop the Mulyashi copper project, forecast to produce 60 000 t of copper cathode by 2010. Chambishi had planned to raise cobalt output to 5 000 tonnes in 2008 from around 3 000 t in 2007 before halting operations due to the fallout of the global economic crisis. "It is the Enya Holdings Group that will operate Chambishi Metals. They will be importing the raw materials (copper concentrate) from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to produce cobalt," Mwale told Reuters in response to a question about which investor would be handed Chambishi Metals Plc. Chambishi Metals was processing cobalt from raw materials at its Nkana Slag damps and raw materials from Baluba mine. Enya Holdings, had interests in both the Bein Stein Group Resources (BSRG) and International Minerals Resources (IRM), the joint owners of LCM before it stopped production. Mwale said the government and Enya Holdings would conclude a deal for operating Chambishi Metals soon. China's Nonferrous Metals Corporation was a fortnight ago awarded the right to run the Luanshya copper mines and pledged to invest $400-million to revamp its operations. July 31, 2008 - China is hungry for Zambia's copper and has become increasingly active in Zambia's Copperbelt Province, once a preserve of colonial Britain. While the Zambian government is upbeat about Chinese investments and involvement, there has been anti-Chinese unrest and rioting among Zambian copper workers over low pay and poor working conditions. Officials in Zambia talk proudly and confidently about the southern African nation's relationship with China. The countries' courtship began in the independence era, when apartheid had taken hold in nearby South Africa. Zambia played a pivotal role helping South Africa's black majority fight the liberation struggle against white minority rule. So the apartheid government cut off routes to South Africa's seaports from landlocked, copper-exporting Zambia. And that, says Finance Minister Ng'andu Peter Magande, is when China stepped in. Investing At A Dizzying Pace "China was the only country that helped us in the '60s to build the Tazara Railway, some 3,000 kilometers of railway line," Magande says. "So to us, what is happening now is China is continuing to come and looking at new sectors — like in the mining sector, in agriculture. So really for us, it's nothing new." But the scale and breadth of China's recent interests and investments in Zambia are new, and they're moving at a truly dizzying pace. Magande says China is an attractive partner. "Currently, we believe that this is extremely important," he says. "We see a lot of Chinese investors coming to Zambia, so I'd say that in the 20th century, Europe was interested and the West did exploit our raw materials. But this time in the 21st century, we have found new investors that are coming back to try to help us to move ahead." Opposing Chinese Influence But not all Zambians are pleased about China's enhanced role in Zambia. And some have expressed deep unease about recolonization in Africa. Michael Sata, nicknamed King Cobra, is Zambia's feisty opposition leader. He failed in a bid to become president two years ago, campaigning on an anti-China platform. Sata speaks of exploitation. "Today, the Chinese are not here as investors, they are here as invaders," Sata says."They bring Chinese to come and push wheelbarrows, they bring Chinese bricklayers, they bring Chinese carpenters, Chinese plumbers — we have plenty of those in Zambia. Pushing a wheelbarrow is pushing a wheelbarrow. They're doing manual work. We don't need to import laborers from China — we need to import people with skill, with skills which we don't have in Zambia. But the Chinese are not going to train our people how to push wheelbarrows." There are plenty more complaints from Zambians about the new bosses and Chinese-run industries, especially in what was the rundown copper sector.But there is praise, too. In the Copperbelt Province, multimillion-dollar Chinese investment is highly visible. In the early morning haze, copper workers head off to the mines and to the giant copper smelter the Chinese have almost finished building in Chambishi. The Chambishi Copper Smelter compound is no-frills, dominated by the huge, electric-blue smelter in the final stages of construction. Three flags flutter in the wind: Zambia's, China's and the Chinese company's. There are rows of dormitories for Chinese technicians, with the wash hanging out to dry. There is a dining hall in front and a large echoing boardroom. 'A Win-Win Project' Zi Xuting, assistant CEO for Chambishi Copper Smelter Ltd., is originally from Yunnan Province in southwest China but has lived in Zambia for the past two years. He says the mighty copper smelter is due to come into commission by the end of the year — and that all sides are benefiting from the deal. "For the Zambians, what they got is tax, employment opportunities and industry development. For China, they got the copper. Chinese and Zambians are brothers," Zi says, laughing. "It's a win-win project."Although Zi is welcoming, speaking with any of the Chinese or Zambian workers — almost all men — who came streaming out of the smelter construction site on lunch break in a sea of blue and yellow hard hats is prohibited. This may be because back in March, 500 Zambian employees were suspended after rioting over low wages and unsafe working conditions. They allegedly attacked a Chinese manager at the smelter, and about 50 workers were fired. George Jambwa, a Zambian journalist turned public relations executive, was the spokesman at Chambishi at the time of the unrest. "It was tense," Jambwa says. "It was well-planned by the workers themselves. The Zambians started throwing stones, and the workers started damaging property. That's when the Chinese workers came out with all sorts of weapons to come and protect the other property. So that's when there was commotion. The police were called in — it was a very difficult situation." Magande says cultural differences and expectations should not preclude a work regime and ethic that all sides can accept. "The Chinese were very frank with us," Magande says. "They told us, 'When we come to your countries, tell us your procedures, tell us your traditions, tell us your systems. Then we can sit down and tell you our systems and, together, we find a brand of what is going to win.'" Such talk enrages Sata. A Chinese-run copper mine explosion killed about 50 Zambian workers three years ago, which he says is proof of dangerous working conditions. He adds that dubious Chinese labor practices were widespread in Africa. "It is not only Zambia — it's all Cape to Cairo where the Chinaman is," Sata says. "That's the way they look at us. They have no regard for us. They have no regard for our independence. They have no regard for any black person as a human being. Those are very abnormal conditions, very abnormal conditions. Very abnormal conditions, which a civilized society, in this century, cannot accept." But not all Zambians are opposed to the Chinese. In Chambishi Township market, there is considerable support. Bernadette Malama, a teacher there, says it's good that the Chinese have come to the area. Along with employment and a reduction in crime, they contribute to the economy by buying market items such as peanuts, oranges and potatoes. "These people, I would only say that they are just almost like us," Malama says of the Chinese. "We use sign language and sometime broken English. We are going to live with them for a longer time. We are going to learn their language." March 6, 2008 - The Chinese managers of Zambia’s Chambishi Copper Smelter (CCS) agreed on Thursday to reinstate 500 workers who had been sacked, their union said. “They have assured us that everybody will get back to work and we hope normal operations will resume on Monday,” National Union of Mining and Allied Workers (Numaw) general secretary Albert Mando told Reuters. “We will then start our salary negotiations again.” CCS employees went on strike and rioted on Tuesday over pay and work conditions, injuring a Chinese manager and a Zambian. The incident highlighted tensions between Zambian workers and Chinese managers in the mining industry. Chambishi Copper Smelter is the first of 50 Chinese companies that plan to invest over $800 million in a tax free zone in Zambia within the next five years, Zambian officials said. March 5, 2008 - Chinese management of Zambia's Chambishi smelter was in the process on Wednesday of firing more than 500 employees following riots at the plant, a union official said on Wednesday. The riots on Tuesday highlighted tensions between Zambian workers and Chinese managers in the mining industry -- the country's economic lifeblood -- while Beijing pushes ahead with a relentless investment drive in Africa. Albert Mando, general secretary of the National Union of Mining and Allied Workers (Numaw), said workers were sent home and dismissal letters were being prepared. He said seven union officials were arrested, which was confirmed by police. "We have been taken by surprise because the union has been told all the workers, over 500 of them, are in the process of receiving dismissal letters. The workers have been given three days in which to appeal against the dismissals," Mando told Reuters by telephone. There was no immediate comment from Chambishi's management. The riots over pay at the smelter on Tuesday injured a Chinese manager and damaged property, officials said. Zambia's vast copper mines are a major employer in the southern African country and its leaders are under pressure to show Chinese investment will benefit its 12 million people. Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has vowed to fight political opponents who try to limit or frustrate Chinese investments in the mineral-rich southern African nation. The growing presence of Chinese firms in Zambia has prompted an anti-Chinese backlash in some parts of the country, with the main opposition party accusing Mwanawasa of allowing the Asian newcomers to exploit workers. China has focused its African ventures on mining companies as well as oil to feed its exploding economy. But it is diversifying into areas such as banking. The country's investment drive in Africa has drawn fire from Western nations and aid groups, who accuse Beijing of turning a blind eye to misrule, corruption and human rights abuses. China argues it is spreading prosperity in the world's poorest continent where the West has failed. The police chief for the restive mineral-rich Copperbelt province, Antonnell Mutentwa, said the seven union officials had been apprehended to help police with investigations. "We will decide the next course of action after interviewing them and conducting investigations," Mutentwa told Reuters by telephone. Chambishi Smelter, which will cost more than $200 million to construct, is part of China's planned $900 million investment in the mining town of Chambishi, which the government has turned into a tax-free economic zone to attract Chinese investment.

MTPD - Metric Tonne per Day STPD - Short Ton per Day
MTPA - Metric Tonne per Annum STPA - Short Ton per Annum
SA - Single Absorption
DA - Double Absorption

* Coordinates can be used to locate plant on Google Earth