New Copper mine opens in North West

Despite the world economic downturn President Rupiah Banda on April 17, 2009 commissioned the Lumwana Mine project in North Western Province. The president told mining firms to invest in processing metal locally to make copper exports more profitable.

President Banda said the launch of Lumwana, Zambia’s largest opencast mining project since independence offers the country a lot of lessons through hard times caused by the global financial melt down.

He said the first lesson for Zambia from the project that marks a major turning point in the economic destiny of Lumwana and North-Western Province, was that for the country to succeed, it needed perseverance.

The second lesson Zambia could learn from the project, he said, was that success did not come easily, as during the period of planning and development of the Lumwana project, colossal amounts of money was invested in infrastructure, mining facilities, community sustainability and business development programmes. The project took 12 years to develop and Equinox invested over U$1 billion, which included the development of a modern new town in Lumwana.

He said the third lesson from the project was the value of mutual trust and partnership developed between the Government and Equinox.

Equinox has been in Zambia since 1996 and is the fifth investor in Lumwana. Equinox president and co-founder, Craig Williams said positive Government policies and the mining reforms attracted his company to invest in the sector at a time when the major mines were struggling.

And Mines and Minerals Development Minister, Maxwell Mwale praised Equinox for the investment.