{"id":23741,"date":"2026-02-13T14:29:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/zambias-mine-regulator-suspends-operations-at-mopanis-mufulira-mine\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:30","slug":"zambias-mine-regulator-suspends-operations-at-mopanis-mufulira-mine","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/zambias-mine-regulator-suspends-operations-at-mopanis-mufulira-mine\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia’s mine regulator suspends operations at Mopani’s Mufulira mine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zambia’s mining regulator this Friday said it had suspended operations at Mopani Copper Mines’ Mufulira mine after it failed to account for all its underground personnel.<\/p>\n

The Minerals Regulation Commission said in a statement the decision followed recent accidents at Mopani’s operations.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The commission said the Mufulira mine had not complied with regulations requiring management to maintain a system to account for all people working underground at any given time.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    “Operations will remain suspended until the mine rectifies all deficiencies identified in its personnel accounting system” the commission said.<\/p>\n

    It said it would also conduct a comprehensive audit of all operations at Mopani’s assets, including the bigger Nkana mine.<\/p>\n

    Mopani Copper Mines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

    The company is one of the biggest copper miners in Zambia, Africa’s second largest producer of the metal vital for clean energy technologies.<\/p>\n

    The United Arab Emirates’ International Resources Holding (IRH) acquired 51% of Mopani in 2024 in a deal worth $1.1 billion.<\/p>\n

    The balance is owned by Zambia’s state mining company ZCCM Investments Holdings (ZCCM-IH).<\/p>\n

    IRH plans to spend $300 million to lift Mopani’s annual copper output to about 200 000 metric tons from around 70 000 metric tons currently.<\/p>\n

    Zambia’s copper output was 820 670 metric tons in 2025, up from 732 580 tons the year before.<\/p>\n

    The southern African country is targeting expanding copper output to 3 million metric tons annually by 2031.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \u2014Reuters\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13586,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-23741","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The commission said the Mufulira mine had not complied with regulations.","published_date":null,"news_description":"The commission said the Mufulira mine had not complied with regulations.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26621,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23741\/revisions\/26621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}