China Molybdenum said ina statement that the expansion project at its Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM) mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo began trial production on July 16, Reuters reported.
The TFM mine expansion project is expected to produce 88,500 tonnes of cathode copper and 7,280 tonnes of cobalt hydroxide, Luoyang Molybdenum said.
Luoyang Molybdenum also said it had a designed capacity of 3.3m tonnes of copper ore per year.
The giant Tenke Fungurume copper mine is one of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the world, producing 182,597 tonnes of copper and 15,436 tonnes of cobalt in 2020.
Luoyang Molybdenum said it planned to increase copper production at the mine to 187,300 to 228,900 tonnes and cobalt to 16,500 to 20,100 tonnes this year.
"The expansion will increase ore processing capacity by 10,000 tonnes per day... "To 25,000 tonnes, annual copper and cobalt production will be much higher."
Luoyang Molybdenum said it could also "take advantage of rising metal prices" to further improve profitability as the project goes into trial production.
Three-month copper prices on the London Metal Exchange rose by more than 20 per cent and cobalt by more than 60 per cent in the year to 2021.
