Zijin to invest 200 mln euro in revamping Serbia’s Bor copper mine/smelter

China’s Zijin Mining Group plans to invest 200 million euro ($221 million) in revamping and expanding the current capacities of Serbian copper mining and smelting complex Bor which it controls, local media reported.

Zijin is currently drafting a project for the planned overhaul and for the planned expansion of the smelter’s annual capacity of 80,000 tonnes of copper concentrate to 200,000 tonnes within a four-year period, news daily Vecernje Novosti quoted Bor mayor Aleksandar Milikic as saying on Monday.

Parallel with this, the Chinese company will invest in the purchase and installation of special converter machines that will increase the purity of copper concentrate to 99.8% from current 62%, Milikic said.

Zjin also plans to build a new plant for sulphuric acid production, which will help raise the annual output of sulphuric acid up to 1.0 million tonnes, Milikic added. The existing plant produces some 400,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid per annum.

In addition, Zjin intends to build a new facility for treatment of waste water and gases, aiming to capture as much as 99.8% of all hazardous gases released in the production.

“All this is necessary considering the expected opening of new mines in Bor and Majdanpek, following which the processing capacities need to increase with a maximum alignment to the environment protection rules,” Milikic said.

Bor and Majdanpek are both located in eastern Serbia.

Source: seenews.com

China Zijin to build copper smelter in Serbia

China’s Zijin Mining Group plans to build a copper smelter at the Majdanpek open pit mine in Serbia, energy minister Aleksandar Antic has said.

“We expect Zijin to apply for approval of the construction works by the end of this year. We hope that by then, first activity on the project will be launched,” Antic said in a video file posted on the website of Serbian news agency Tanjug.

Zijin plans to use all technological and environmental solutions applied in China in mines in Serbia, Antic said during a visit to the headquarters of the company in Shanghang.

“One of the first steps we will take in Serbia will be to increase production and revamp the Jama and Cerovo mines in Majdanpek and modernise the technological process in the smelter,” the senior executive vice president of Zijin, George Fang, said in the video file.

Last month, the director of Zijin Serbia, Long Ji, said the company plans to launch a project for expansion of the Majdanpek open pit mine by the end of this year.

The Chinese group injected $350 million (316.8 million euro) in the capital of Serbian copper mining and smelting company RTB Bor in December 2018, acquiring majority ownership, and renamed it to Zijin Bor Copper.

The Chinese company intends to invest $1.26 billion to improve the production operations of RTB Bor, open new mines and increase efficiency, Antic said in December. Serbia will become the third-largest copper producer in Europe and the share of the mining industry in Serbia’s GDP will grow to 5% from 1%, he noted back then.

Source: seenews.com