Canadian miner Barrick Gold Corporation has an-nounced that Zambia’s proposed tax changes could put its Lumwana copper mine "in a challenging situation", and "imperil the mine’s abil-ity to sustain returns to all stakeholders, such as the significant con-tribution of more than $3.3 billion it has already made to the Zambian economy over the past 10 years."
Willem Jacobs, Barrick’s chief operating officer for Africa and the Mid-dle East, said in a statement that, while reports that the company had sold Lumwana were untrue, "all options would have to be consid-ered", hinting at the mine’s potential sale.
Barrick says that in September 2018, the Zambian authorities intro-duced changes to the country’s mining tax regime which include a 1.5% raise in royalty rates, "the introduction of a 10% royalty on cop-per production if copper price increases above a certain price, the imposition of a 5% import duty on copper concentrates," and the re-placement of the value-added tax (VAT) with a new, non-refundable sales tax.