Originally published on LinkedIn. This work is AI-assisted - read about how I work.
Copper was recorded in the Lumwana East River in Zambia’s North-Western Province in the 1930s. It took another 70 years to build a mine.
Roan Selection Trust picked up the ground in the 1950s. American Metal Climax followed, forming a joint venture with Anglo American in 1970. After Zambia nationalised copper in 1975, the project passed to the state. Another JV drilled it through the 1980s. Phelps Dodge held the licence in the early 1990s.
None built the mine.
Long before them, copper was part of the region’s history. Kaonde and Lunda communities trace their roots to the Luba-Lunda Empire. At Kansanshi, 100km away, Kaonde ancestors worked copper from around 400 AD, carrying smelted metal another 100km to Kipushi. When a British prospecting expedition arrived in 1899, a local chief showed them the ancient workings. The workings had been abandoned, but the memory remained.
In 1999, Equinox Minerals earned into Lumwana, buying Phelps Dodge out for $5m.
It spent $760m building the mine.
Production began in December 2008, months late after a plant fire.
Barrick Mining Corporation acquired Equinox in 2011 for C$7.3bn. Then came another test.
In 2014, Zambia raised the open-pit royalty from 6% to 20%. Barrick prepared to suspend Lumwana, putting roughly 4,000 jobs at risk.
Around 2,000 workers struck for a day. President Lungu ordered the rate reviewed. Cabinet cut it to 9% from July 2015, and Lumwana kept running. The Chamber of Mines estimated the original hike could cost the industry 12,000 jobs and 150,000 tonnes of national output.
By 2019, Barrick was considering selling Lumwana. It was high-cost and underperforming. Standard Chartered ran the process; China Minmetals, Jiangxi Copper and Zijin Mining were reported as interested.
No deal happened.
Barrick’s CEO later said he wasn’t in a hurry to sell an asset he believed was undervalued at its $735m book value.
So Barrick did something else.
It doubled down.
The Super Pit Expansion, launched in 2024, is a nearly $2bn investment to double throughput and target 240,000 tonnes of copper annually. First ore is due in early 2028. In Q1 2026, Barrick said the project remained on schedule, while Lumwana helped lift group copper production 11%.
Around the mine, a village of fewer than 1,000 people became a town of roughly 5,000. Today, 98% of Lumwana’s workforce is Zambian. Barrick says that since 2019 the mine has contributed more than $4bn to Zambia through taxes, royalties, wages and procurement.
For decades, companies drilled Lumwana, owned it, transferred it and moved on.
Now Barrick is spending nearly $2bn to make it much bigger.
Sometimes the difference between a prospect and a world-class mine isn’t merely what lies underground.
It’s also who is prepared to stay — and keep investing.