International mining company Equinox Minerals reports that its wholly owned subsidiary, the Lumwana Mining Company (LMC), has signed a five-year concentrate offtake agreement with Konkola Copper Mines (KCM).

LMC will process yearly quantities of between 70 000 t and 80 000 t of concentrates from the Lumwana copper mine with a mutual agreement option for additional yearly quantities of copper concentrates under the same terms of the agreement.

The copper treatment and refining charges under the agreement are to be determined yearly, based on Japanese smelter benchmark terms.

Equinox Minerals president and CEO Craig Williams says: “The new long-term offtake agreement with KCM supplements the company’s existing long-term offtake agreement with Chambishi Copper Smelter and, together, will account for a large portion of Lumwana’s budgeted production.”

KCM is majority-owned by India-based Vedenta Resources, a London-listed metals and mining company. KCM recently installed and commissioned the new Nchanga smelter on the Zambian Copperbelt. This smelter has an output capacity of 300 000 t/y of copper anode and 1850 t/d of sulphuric acid. KCM operates the Nchanga and Konkola copper mines and the Nkana refinery, and is developing the Konkola Deep copper mine.