Tanzania: No plan to build copper smelter

Dar es Salaam. Copper concentrates from gold mines will continue being exported because their quantities do not suffice the establishment of a smelter in the country, according to the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Minerals Audit Agency.

A commercially viable copper smelter requires 150,000 tonnes per year while the country produces between 35,000 tonnes and 60,000 tonnes annually. This would only account for a minimum of 23 per cent to a maximum of 40 per cent of the capacity of a viable copper smelter.

Briefing the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy and Minerals in Dar es Salaam recently Engineer Paul Masanja, TMAA chief executive officer, said the unreliable power supply also makes investments in a copper concentrate smelter unsustainable. Smelters need high quality intensive power supply, which is currently unavailable in the country.

The Committee members wanted to know why copper concentrates are shipped out of the country instead of being smelted in the country. Copper concentrates are mainly produced in the Buzwagi and Bulyanhulu gold mines.“We have conducted a thorough research and we have found out that building a smelter would not be viable,” Mr Masanja said.

The research conducted also indicated that constructing a copper concentrates plant will require an investment of about $500 million, more than three times the cost of putting up a gold mine like Buzwagi, which cost more than $150 million.

The value of the copper concentrates produced annually by the two mines, Buzwagi and Bulyanhulu, is so small that it cannot assure meaningful returns to investors, according to Mr Masanja, but the government still gets royalty out of the copper smelted outside the country.The ceo also assured Members of Parliament that all copper consignments that leave the country are thoroughly inspected to make sure that no other unauthorised packages are taken out of the country.