Lusaka (Platts)--29Nov2010/306 am EST/806 GMT
Zambia's $160 million Chambishi West Orebody Copper Project, owned by Non-Ferrous China Africa, local subsidiary of state-owned China Nonferrous Metals Corp., started production on Saturday, which will add 1 million mt to the country's annual copper output. China's CNMC would invest another $500 million in the Chambishi East Orebody Copper project early 2011, said Zambia's President Rupiah Banda at the commissioning of the Chambishi West Orebody project. Banda assured CNMC President Luo Tao that the government would fully support the construction of the Chambishi East Orebody project, which includes a large-scale smelting plant to produce LME-grade copper and high grade cobalt. With this, CNMC's investment in Zambia would grow by $1 billion from the $1.4 billion currently, Luo said. Other projects undertaken by CNMC in Zambia were the Muliashi Leaching project, expansion of the Chambishi Copper Smelter capacity to 250,000 mt/year from 150,000 mt/year, and the Chambishi multi-facility Economic Zone on the Copperbelt, Luo said. By the end of 2013, CNMC's total investment in Zambia will surpass $2.5 billion providing more than 20,000 jobs, Luo added. Meanwhile, President Banda warned the industry that companies that compromised on safety and environmental standards would be punished. Zambia valued the safety of miners and would not tolerate unsafe work practices that could harm workers and the environment, Banda added. --James Mwambazi, newsdesk@platts.comSimilar stories appear in Metals Week. See more information at http://www.platts.com/Products/metalsweek