A power supply outage that occurred last week on Friday reportedly caused snarl-ups in Zambia’s mining sites. Luanshya Copper Mine, one of the mines in the country has since released a statement decrying the loss of approximately four hours of production as a result of the power outage.
According to Sydney Chileya, spokesperson for the China Nonferrous Metals Mining Corporation (CNMC) owned mine said that the equipment will have to be started gradually to avoid any possible damages. This is despite the power restoration process that is already underway.
On the other hand, according to media reports Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) owned by Vedanta Resources shut down all its operations. That is with exception to its smelter and the Konkola Deep Mine during the blackout.
Meanwhile, the Zambian state power firm Zesco said the outage was due to a technical fault. According to the utility’s spokesperson Henry Kapata, the glitch was traced from a system disturbance which in turn led to the loss of power on the Copperbelt, including the mines. He was however quick to add that they are currently investigating the cause of the disturbance. He added that the power restoration has already begun but will take a while.
