Serbia is set to establish itself as the second-largest copper producer in Europe following the opening of the Cu-karu Peki upper zone of the Timok copper-gold project, according to the Serbian Ministry of Energy. The mine, which is developed by China’s Zijin Mining, is scheduled to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Serbia’s Energy Ministry has approved the construction of mining fa-cilities and performance of mining operations in Cukaru Peki. The in-vestment is expected to boost Serbia’s stake in the European copper production from 5 to 18 percent of the total, according to the infor-mation obtained by local news site SEENews.com. This would allow Serbia to become Europe’s second-largest producer of copper, pre-ceded only by Poland.
Zijin Mining’s offshoot Rakita Exploration owns a 100 percent stake in the gold-copper project.