AFRICA'S MINERAL MAKEOVER

Soaring demand for resources is reshaping Africa's ambitions— and place in the global order

- BY CHARLIE CAMPBELL/LUSAKA, ZAMBIA

THE JOURNEY FROM TAWNY EARTH TO COPPER WIRE begins with an explosion. Or 2,697 explosions, to be precise. At the 1,100-acre main pit of Kansanshi copper mine in northern Zambia, a lattice of six-inch blast holes punctuates the ribboned moonscape. At 3 p.m., the ground erupts in an echelon pattern, sending plumes of dust skyward.

Cue the arrival of the world's largest electric dump trucks, which haul away the rubble to be ground to a fine powder. The ore is then concentrated via chemical flotation and finally transformed into 99.5% pure copper anode on site in Africa’s biggest smelter, where the liquid metal emerges amid an emerald glow. “The green color shows it’s pure copper,” says Edmund Mokolo, a smelter engineer for First Quantum Minerals (FQM), which runs Kansanshi.

Zambia is already Africa’s second largest producer of copper, which accounts for around 70% of its export earnings. As with many of its neighbors, its history and culture have been shaped by minerals. Copper’s historic importance is spotlighted by an orange stripe on the Zambian flag—the world’s only national banner to reference the mineral. The landlocked nation of 22 million has highly ambitious plans to quadruple copper output to 3 million tons annually by 2031, electrifying the global economy while juicing its own. About $10 billion of private capital is being invested into mine expansion, including $1.25 billion by FQM for its new S3 processing plant in Kansanshi.

But Africa’s current moment isn’t just about copper. It’s about whether the continent can shed historic dependencies to turn its mineral wealth into prosperity, without repeating mistakes of the past. One way is to leverage the U.S.-China rivalry, and the global clamor for the minerals essential to both the green transition and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.