Zambia’s copper production will double in 2017 from a projected level of as much as 750,000 metric tons this year, said Christopher Yaluma, the mines minister of Africa’s second-biggest producer of the metal. A CRU Group analyst said the target is “wildly optimistic.”
The increase will come from First Quantum Minerals Ltd.’s Kalumbila mine, a new project Glencore Plc is building at its Mopani mine and known as the synclinorium shaft, and improved power supply, he said Thursday in an interview at a conference in Lusaka, the capital.
