Kaz Minerals completes multi-year restructuring effort

Kaz Minerals, the London-listed company which was formed out of Kazakhmys, says its multi-year restructuring and transformation into a copper company focused on supplying China is complete.

The company has gone from 60,000 employees to 9,000 and doubled its copper production, Oleg Novachuk, chief executive, told the Financial Times.

Kaz Minerals was formed in 2014 from a restructuring of London-listed Kazakhmys after disposing of power and mining assets in Kazakhstan. It also sold its stake in Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, a Kazakh-based miner than left the FTSE 100 in 2013 amid allegations of corruption.

It has since gone on to invest $3.5bn in its two key open pit copper projects Bozshakol and Aktogay in Kazakhstan. Last year copper production rose by 73 per cent to 140,000 tonnes, it said Thursday. It expects that to rise to 300,000 tonnes in 2018.

Western China is likely to see continued growth in urbanization that requires copper, Mr. Novachuk said. The company’s mines are 12 kilometers from the Chinese border.

The company has a $4.2bn loan from state policy bank China Development Bank and in December also obtained $300m from the Development Bank of Kazakhstan, as part of its lending to develop the non-oil economy.

The company reported its net profit for 2016 was $177m compared to a loss of $12m a year earlier. Shares in the company rose 1.4 per cent in London to 577.5p.