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Luanshya mine to create 1,000 more jobs By Gideon Thole CH
By Gideon Thole
CHINA Non-Ferrous Metal Company’s Luanshya Copper Mines (CLM) is set to recruit 1,000 employees in readiness for the beginning of production at the Muliashi open pit mine, taking the total number of workers to more than 3,000.
CLM also plans to make an additional investment of more than US$150 million to rehabilitate infrastructure at Luanshya Copper Mine this year.
CLM public relations officer Sydney Chileya said in an interview yesterday that CLM had so far recruited 2,480 miners and would employ 1,000 more for the Muliashi mine project.
“The expansion of CLM under its second mine, Muliashi open pit mine is going on smoothly and all is set to make the new mine operational by July this year,” he said.
Mr Chileya said CLM was optimistic that production at Muliashi would start within the planned time frame.
Once fully operational, Muliashi is expected to have production capacity of 500,000 tonnes of copper ore per year and would be operational for a period of not less than 12 years.
The mine’s basic engineering designs have already been completed and the mining technology is only waiting for approval from the Zambian Government, while detailed engineering works have all been completed.
And Mr Chileya said CLM management was this year working towards meeting the anticipated production target of more than 1,000 tonnes of copper ore per day at Luanshya Copper Mine.
Apart from opening the Muliashi project, the mine owners have indicated that they would this year make an additional investment of more than $150 million to repair infrastructure at Luanshya Copper Mine.
The mine was targeting to produce 1,000 tonnes of copper ore per month, approximately 11,000 tonnes per year, before increasing to 2,000 tonnes per month.
Luanshya Copper Mine, which resumed production recently, was closed early last year and placed on care-and-maintenance after global commodity prices fell on the international market.
Last year, the then mine owners Enya Holdings said they were not ready to continue with copper production after the mine operations were adversely affected by the global economic meltdown.