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Mining & Minerals

Zambia’s copper concentrate export duty returns on 30 September after a year suspended

2nd September, 2026

 A 10% duty on copper concentrate exports was suspended in August 2025 and the waiver has been extended to the end of this month. It currently covers 271,742 tonnes across six producers, with Mopani holding the largest quota at 100,000 tonnes. The duty is intended to favour domestic processing.

Six Zambian producers are exporting copper concentrate duty-free under a waiver covering 271,742 tonnes, and it expires on 30 September.

Mopani holds the largest quota at 100,000 tonnes. Barrick’s Lumwana has 56,986 tonnes, First Quantum and Chinese-owned Nkana Mining and Minerals Processing hold roughly 43,000 tonnes each, and Lubambe and Konkola Copper Mines have 15,000 and 12,541 tonnes.

The 10% duty was introduced to push processing onshore and suspended in August 2025, then extended while producers worked through accumulated concentrate and major smelters underwent maintenance.

Zambia mostly exports refined cathode rather than concentrate, so the duty bites at the margin rather than across the trade. What it tests is whether smelter capacity has kept pace with the volume the expansions are producing.

That volume is rising sharply. National output reached a record 890,346 tonnes in 2025, and the finance ministry expects more than a million tonnes this year and 1.2 million in 2027. First Quantum produced 184,929 tonnes in Zambia in the first half of 2026, up 5% year on year, with Kansanshi at 89,342 tonnes and Sentinel at 95,587.

Capital sits behind those numbers. First Quantum commissioned its $1.25 billion Kansanshi S3 expansion in August 2025, lifting the mine toward an average 250,000 tonnes a year through 2044 against 171,000 tonnes in 2024. Barrick is spending $2 billion doubling Lumwana to around 240,000 tonnes. KoBold Metals’ proposed Mingomba mine is costed at $2.3 to $2.5 billion for around 300,000 tonnes annually in the early 2030s.

Zambia Chamber of Mines president Anthony Malenga has put investment entering or committed to the sector since 2021 at more than $10 billion.

President Hakainde Hichilema’s target is three million tonnes by 2031.

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