Court approves billionaire Agarwal’s plan to reclaim Zambia mine

Vedanta Resources Ltd. can take back control of the Konkola copper project in Zambia after a court sanctioned a plan to settle debts owed to the mine’s creditors.

A court in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, on Friday approved a scheme of arrangement that was supported by Konkola Copper Mines Plc’s creditors, the southern African country’s mines minister, Paul Kabuswe, said on Facebook. Billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta has been trying to regain the major copper asset since 2019, when KCM was put into provisional liquidation after the previous government accused its owner of lying about expansion plans and paying too little tax.

To get access to the mine again, Vedanta now needs to follow the court ruling by releasing $250 million to settle debts that KCM owes to contractors and suppliers. Vedanta told Bloomberg this week that it stands ready to start making the payments. Agarwal’s firm has also committed to investing $1 billion over five years to complete expansion projects.

Although Konkola’s annual production capacity exceeds 300,000 tons of copper, output of the metal that’s key to the energy transition and whose price rallied to a record last month slumped to less than 40,000 tons in 2023.

The flagship operation — Konkola Deep — extends almost a mile underground. It is one of the world’s wettest mines, requiring the equivalent of 140 Olympic-sized swimming pools to be pumped to the surface daily in order to function.