La Zambie : un nouvel Eldorado pour les groupements miniers?

Zambia, Africa’s largest copper- mining nation, is set to enter the world’s top five producers as Vale SA (VALE3), First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (FM) and Vedanta Resources Plc (VED) lead more than $6 billion of investment in the country’s mines.“If all the planned projects take off, Zambia is expected to overtake Australia and Indonesia to become the fifth-largest copper-producing country in the world by 2013,” Sophie Chung, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie unit Brook Hunt, said yesterday in an e-mail. The country’s “positive” investment climate sets it apart from its neighbors, Brook Hunt said in a separate note. Zambia has pledged not to take mines into state hands or impose windfall taxes, even as Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the north, and Zimbabwe to the south, study measures to boost mining revenue as commodity prices climb. Zambia’s copper output, some 681,000 metric tons last year, may double to 1.44 million tons by 2015, according to Brook Hunt. “Many mining companies have managed to enter into extremely good development deals in their contracts,” Jacob Lushinga, an economist at the Economics Association of Zambia, said June 20 by phone. The agreements include incentives such as favorable power rates and unrestricted ownership, he said. The only other African country among the top 10 copper producers is Congo, ranked 10th, while Chile, China, Peru and the U.S. are the largest, according to 2010 data from Edinburgh- based Wood Mackenzie. Vale, Glencore Canada’s First Quantum has said it may spend $1.9 billion on its Trident and Kansanshi mines in Zambia after losing the Kolwezi copper project in Congo in a 2009 rights battle with the government. Vale’s joint venture with African Rainbow Minerals Ltd. will invest $1 billion in Zambia’s Konkola North project, while Vedanta’s Konkola Copper Mines unit plans to spend about $1 billion over the next three years and Glencore International Plc will invest $500 million in its Zambian Mopani operation. Copper producers are betting on increasing demand from China, the largest consumer of the metal used in wires and pipes, as the economic recovery fuels a building boom. Copper prices tripled to $9,600 a ton in London trading from 2008 through 2010, contributing to a commodities rally that saw nickel prices double and gold jump 62 percent. In Tanzania, which has gold and tanzanite mines, the national planning commission in June recommended consideration of a so-called super-profit tax on miners. In Zimbabwe, the government passed a law this year that will force foreign companies to sell a 51 percent stake in mining assets to black Zimbabweans, while in South Africa the ruling party is studying mine nationalization following proposals by its youth wing.