Metorex is a mining company based in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, South Africa. It has assets in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

(DRC),

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

and elsewhere. A takeover bid by the Jinchuan Group of China valued the company at US$1.1 billion. Since January 2012, the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Jinchuan Group.

History

The company was founded in 1975 by a consortium that included Anthony Simon Malone, and acquired Rand London Mines. In the following years Metorex acquired additional properties mining a variety of minerals including gold, coal, asbestos, copper, zinc and tin. The mines were located in South Africa, Namibia and Zambia. In December 1999 Metorex merged with Consolidated Murchison and listed on the JSE and LSE exchanges. In the following years the company continued to expand through acquisition of new properties. In 2004 Metorex entered into a joint venture to develop the Ruashi copper mine site in the DRC, and subsequently made substantial investments in this project. In April 2011

Vale A vale is a type of valley. Vale may also refer to: Places Georgia * Vale, Georgia, a town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region Norway * Våle, a historic municipality Portugal * Vale (Santa Maria da Feira), a former civil parish in the municip ...

announced that it intended to offer to purchase Metorex at a price of R7,524 million. This was topped by an offer by Jinchuan Group in July 2011 that valued the company at R9,112 million. Jinchuan said it would treat Metorex as a strategic vehicle for expanding its mining presence in Africa. In October 2011 the South African and Zambian competition authorities approved the bid, now worth US$1.1 billion, and the main Zambian and DRC investors approved the deal.

Assets

Assets in the DRC include the existing Kinsenda Mine, the new Ruashi copper and cobalt mine, and the Dilala East and Lubembe deposit greenfields sites. In Zambia the company owns Chibuluma, a modern mechanised underground copper mine located near the town of

Kalulushi Kalulushi is a town in the Copperbelt Province in north central Zambia. It is located on the M18 road, just west of Kitwe. The population of Kalulushi District was 170,701 at the 2022 census. Kalulushi emerged as a planned company town with the d ...

that produces copper concentrate to be sold to smelters. Copper Resources Corporation is a subsidiary of Metorex. As of November 2011 it held a 92.5% interest in the Hinoba-an Porphyry Copper project in the Philippines, and a 75% interest in Miniere de Musoshi et Kinsenda (MMK). MMK, formerly a subsidiary of

Forrest Group The Forrest Group (also Groupe Forrest) is a Belgian mining conglomerate that was founded in 1922. As of 2018, the Forrest Group is active primarily in Central and East Africa. It is owned by George Arthur Forrest, a Belgian entrepreneur of New ...

, owned the flooded Kinsenda and Musoshi copper mines in the

Katanga Province Katanga was one of the four large provinces created in the Belgian Congo in 1914. It was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika Province, Tanganyika, Hau ...

. MMK became a subsidiary of Copper Resources Corporation as of 30 November 2005. Due to a Title Revisitation Process initiated by the DRC government, in February 2009 it was confirmed that the Musoshi mine would be returned to the state-owned

Sodimico Sodimico (''Société de développement industriel et minier du Congo'') is a Congolese state-owned mining company in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In 2022 the DRC General Inspectorate of Finance blamed the government for putting t ...

. MMK also holds the Lubembe high-grade deposit.

References

Companies based in Johannesburg Mining companies of South Africa {{SouthAfrica-company-stub