Key points
- Konkola Copper Mines, 79.4% owned by Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta, has signed a $498 million EPC contract with China NERIN Engineering for a tailings leach plant in Chingola.
- The plant will recover about 70,000 metric tons of copper a year from existing mine waste and is expected to be the largest of its kind in Africa.
- It forms part of Vedanta’s $1 billion-plus investment pledge to lift KCM to 300,000 tons a year and Zambia’s push for 3 million tons nationally by 2031.
Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Konkola Copper Mines has signed a $498 million contract with China NERIN Engineering to build a plant that will recover about 70,000 metric tons of copper a year from mine waste, a project the company says will be the largest of its kind in Africa.
The tailings leach plant will rise at KCM’s operations in Chingola, in Zambia’s Copperbelt, and use hydrometallurgical leaching to dissolve copper out of decades of accumulated tailings.
Under the agreement, NERIN will handle design, engineering, procurement, construction and equipment erection, then support commissioning, performance testing and workforce training, KCM said in a statement on Thursday.
KCM deputy chief executive Satish Kumar called the project a major milestone that would unlock value from resources the company already holds and extend the life of its assets.
NERIN chairman Wu Runhua said the plant would create jobs during construction and operations and open opportunities for local suppliers on the Copperbelt.
Copper from waste, not new pits
Tailings are the leftover rock and slurry from past processing, and reworking them is often faster and cheaper than opening new ground because the material has already been mined and measured.
KCM has run a tailings operation at Nchanga for years, and the new facility will operate alongside it.
The plant is one piece of a wider program. Vedanta, which owns 79.4% of KCM with the balance held by Zambia’s state investment arm ZCCM-IH, has pledged more than $1 billion to rebuild the company since regaining control in 2024 after a five-year dispute with the government.
The anchor of that plan is the Konkola Deep Mining Project, and the target is annual output of roughly 300,000 tons.
Zambia’s 3 million ton ambition
The deal also feeds into Zambia’s national goal of producing 3 million tons of copper a year by 2031, more than triple the 890,346 tons recorded in 2025.
Zambia is Africa’s second-largest copper producer after the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose exports of the metal fell almost 15% in the first quarter.
Global demand for copper is expected to keep climbing as countries build out power grids, renewable energy, data centers and electric vehicles, and miners across the Copperbelt are racing to add capacity while prices remain strong.
KCM operates integrated mining and processing facilities in Chingola, Chililabombwe, Kitwe and Nampundwe, and is Zambia’s largest integrated copper producer, with mines, concentrators, a smelter and a refinery under one roof.
