Zambia’s largest mining company – First Quantum Minerals – FQM which is listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange has rejected allegations that it’s been mining nickel at Kalumbila for some time now.
Information had been passed on to the Zambian Business Times – ZBT by sources who asked for their names to be withheld that they had worked at Kalumbila mine and that Nickel Mining has already been taking place at the mine for some time now but had not been officially declared.
FQM had earlier announced that it approved a further $100 million investment in its Enterprise nickel project in Zambia, which it expects to start producing in 2023, ramping up to annual production to about 30,000 tonnes of nickel concentrate, with annual revenues of about of $750 million.
Mine Development experts have indicated that the timeline of six (6) months which FQM have indicated to open and commission a large scale nickel mine is practically too short, both financially and operationally, raising questions as to whether the pledged funds had already been invested by the time of announcement.
When contact by ZBT to confirm if FQM Kalumbila have been mining Nickel after they confirmed that they already had a nickel license for some time now, FQM refuted the allegations stating that there has not been any Nickel Mining in the past from Kalumbila mine.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with ZBT, FQM Country Manager General Kingsley Chinkuli confirmed that there has been no nickel mines and that there is no mining of Nickel at the moment as they are still doing the ground preparations.
The FQM Country Manager explained to ZBT that at the moment, only preparations are being done for a ground breaking ceremony which is scheduled to take place towards the end of July 2022. Chinkuli told ZBT that operations of mining Nickel have not yet commenced adding that full operations are only expected to begin in January 2023.
“The activity at the moment is removing over burden so as to reach the ore by January 2023. There is no Mining of nickel at the moment,” stressed FQM country Manager. However, an earlier querry by ZBT on when a nickel licence was obtained revealed that FQM acquired nickel mining license in 2011
The opening of FQM’s Kalumbila based Nickel mine will make Zambia, Africa’s largest nickel producer. The country already has Munali Nickel mine at Mazabuka, but the two mines will together make Zambia the largest Afro producer of this metal deemed strategic to the booming electric car industry.
