Copper resources and development in China and abroad

Geological conditions of China's copper mine is better, the world's third largest copper metallogenic belt - Tethyan metallogenic belt, Central Asia (ancient Asia) metallogenic belt and the Pacific Rim have passed metallogenic belt in China. By the end of 2001, there were 974 copper mines in China, with a reserve of 19.41 million tons of copper and a base reserve of 30.83 million tons. Based on the copper content of steel concentrates with an annual output of 600,000 tons, the existing copper reserves can only be guaranteed for 17 years. Even if the reserves are all upgraded to reserves, they can only guarantee 28 years of mining. China's copper resources, especially large and copper-rich resources, are insufficient.

With the continuous expansion of China's copper demand and copper smelting scale, China's copper raw material imports will have a large increase on the existing basis, and the contradiction between supply and demand is increasingly intensified.

Major domestic production and construction in progress

China's large copper mine resources and development process

By 2006, domestic ownership copper metal reserves of 100 million tons, production capacity of 1 million tons / year of copper mine resources and development processes are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Statistical comparison of copper mine resources and development processes

The mine resources and development technology for the copper mines to be developed in China are more than 1 million tons, and the production scale is up to 10,000 tons of refined copper. See Table 2.

Table 2 Statistical comparison of mines to be developed

Major offshore mines

Zambia Chambishi Mine (China Color Mining accounts for 85% of the shares)

(1) Resources and reserves (see Table 3)

Table 3 Qianhua Copper Mine Resources and Reserves

(2) Production and construction and process conditions

The Chambishi Copper Mine resumed construction of the underground mine on July 28, 2000, and was completed and put into operation on July 28, 2003. The mining capacity of the Chambishi Copper Mine is designed to be 6,500 tons/day. Underground production is jointly developed by vertical shaft and slope pressure passage, filling method, empty field method, caving method mining, scraper mining, electric motor vehicle transportation, and shaft lifting mining technology. The ore dressing adopts three sections and one closed circuit crushing, a closed-circuit large-scale ball mill grinding, flotation column selection, and medium-mineral re-grinding separately. In 2007, the actual ore was selected to be 1.32 million tons of ore, which was selected as the grade of 1.89% Cu. The final product is a copper concentrate.

(3) West ore body construction project

On October 27, 2007, the construction of the western ore body was officially started. The west ore body of the Chambishi copper mine adopts the main slope road + central auxiliary shaft development method. The mining method is point column filling method, layered filling method and approach filling method. The ore dressing is three sections and one closed road crushing ore, one section of rough grinding, Flotation, re-grinding, de-selection and dehydration. The construction project has an investment of 100 million U.S. dollars, and the construction period is 3 years. It will be put into operation at the end of 2010. After the mine is completed and put into production, the annual output of copper ore is 1 million tons and the concentrate copper content is 18,000 tons.

Pakistan Sandak Copper Mine (MCC Leasing Management)

(1) Statistics of resource reserves (see Table 4)

Table 4 Statistics on the reserves of the Shandake copper mine in Pakistan

(2) Open-pit mining resources and processes

Due to the relatively good conditions for the construction of resources in the South Ore, the South Ore Body was first developed. The southern ore body design open pit mine can have a mining capacity of 78 million tons, copper grade 0.434%, and gold 0.476 g/ton. The average stripping ratio is 1.91/1, and the production stripping ratio is 3/1. It is made of a 251 mm roller rig made in China, 10 cubic shovel and 68 ton truck. The mine production service period is 20 years. Using the conventional flotation process, the annual processing capacity of ore is 4.5 million tons, and the annual output of concentrate is 1.6 million tons of copper, 1.47 tons of gold and 2.76 tons of silver.

Copper mine resources project to be developed outside China

Between 2006 and 2008, China's major mining companies have obtained at least six large-scale copper mineral resources projects abroad. The copper resources of these projects are more than 1 million tons, and the total resources are 35.19 million tons. The resources of these copper resource projects abroad are greater than the sum of China's copper resource base reserves.

Mine dispatch and mining process (see Table 5)

Brief Analysis of Characteristics of Copper Mines to Be Developed Abroad

Table 5 6 large copper mine resources and mining processes

(1) The resources are basically reliable, and the mining investment environment is better.

In recent years, China's large-scale copper resource projects that have been acquired or cooperated abroad have some early discoveries, some are recently proven, and the projects are all advanced research projects. The degree of work has reached the preliminary feasibility study, and the project resources are basically reliable. The investment environment is good, and the main problems and risks of the project have been fully exposed, which is conducive to the further development of the follow-up work of the project.

(2) Small technical risks

The above projects are all developed by the day, most of which are flotation treatment processes, and a small amount will be the heap leaching process. The products are lead , molybdenum, zinc, gold concentrate, etc. The process technology used has been tested by long-term practice at home and abroad. The project technology is mature and the technical risk is small.

(3) Infrastructure construction and environmental protection are the key and difficult issues for the smooth development and operation of the project.

According to the progress of the world's large-scale porphyry-type copper mine project in the past two years, due to the rising prices of world energy oil and various materials, rising labor costs, coupled with the depreciation of the US dollar, global equipment prices and construction costs have risen sharply. The government generally attaches great importance to environmental protection policies in mining development, and its standards have been improved to varying degrees. The cost of mine water treatment and anti-corrosion measures has been increased, and the investment costs and operating costs of mine development and construction have been increased.

(4) The investment amount is large and the construction period is long.

According to the analysis of the investment trend of large-scale copper mine construction in the world, the comparative analysis of conservative projects, the open-pit mining method, and the construction investment estimate of an average of 50-100 US dollars/ton of ore units, all the above copper mine projects are about to be developed. The amount of investment required for construction is between US$8.5 billion and US$15 billion.

According to the engineering analogy, if there is no major change in the world economy, the copper price in the international market is within the expected level of the project. The environment of the above project development has not produced any major unfavorable factors, so that the project can progress normally, and the feasibility study has been completed individually. Projects entering the preliminary design phase are expected to enter the production phase in 2011, and most projects will achieve mine production between 2012 and 2015.

(5) The increase in international transportation costs and product solutions affecting project development.

China is a big copper consumer and a copper smelting country. Domestic copper can not meet the needs of domestic smelting and consumption. In 2006, the amount of copper concentrate imported from abroad exceeded 3.6 million tons. Most of China's foreign copper resources projects are based on the production of copper concentrates as a mine product, and then into the domestic smelting processing as a product destination for copper resource development. As the era of global energy and low prices has ended, the rise in oil prices has led to a sharp increase in freight rates. According to the feasibility study of individual copper mine projects, the transportation cost of domestically produced copper concentrates shipped back to China has accounted for 17-20 of the project operating costs. %, and will rise further with the oil price. The international transportation cost will become a relatively sensitive factor affecting the operating efficiency of China's copper mine projects abroad, which will greatly increase the cost risk in the future operation of the project.

It is necessary to take into account the relationship between China's foreign copper resource project resource control strategy and the economic benefits of project development; fully consider the relationship between the project site and the product destination in terms of economic and rational transportation in the selection of foreign resource projects. For the copper resource projects that have been acquired, if the resources and development conditions are relatively general and the copper resources projects with weak cost competitive advantages can be considered, the copper concentrates or deep processing copper resources development products can be considered.

The product design of Zhongshui Mining in Zambia Copper Mine in Zambia is to produce copper concentrate. The destination of the product is domestic, but after comprehensive analysis and comparison of transportation costs, the copper concentrate produced by Qianming has been sold locally. With the increase in production of mines and the increase in production of copper concentrates, it is planned to adopt the method of “smelting and deep processing in the area; the Shandake copper mine in Pakistan of MCC, from the project design, is the way of smelting and producing crude copper on the spot. The copper concentrate of Bixi Copper Mine is transported back to China, which is beyond the reasonable economic transportation of the project site and product destination. If it is sold or processed locally, the economy will be more reasonable. The Shandake Copper Mine has low grade and development conditions. Generally, the cost of land transportation is higher than that of sea transportation. After crude smelting, copper is sold to the domestic market, which greatly reduces the pressure on transportation costs.