The Musoshi Mine is an underground copper mine in the Katanga Province

Katanga Province

Katanga Province is one of the provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between 1971 and 1997, its official name was Shaba Province. Under the new constitution, the province was to be replaced by four smaller provinces by February 2009; this did not actually take place.Katanga's regional...

 of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

. The mineral rights are owned by the South African miner Metorex

Metorex

Metorex is a mining company based in Johannesburg, South Africa.It has assets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo , Zambia and elsewhere.A recent takeover bid by the Jinchuan Group of China valued the company at US$1.1 billion.-History:...

.

Resource

The Musoshi ore body is the northern extension into the DRC of the Zambian Konkola North ore body.
It is located 1.5 kilometre (0.93205910497471 mi) to the north west of Kasumbalesa

Kasumbalesa

Kasumbalesa or sometimes Kasile is a border town in the province of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo about 96 km south-south-west of Lubumbashi. It is located at the border with Zambia, and is connected by road and railway with Lubumbashi....

.
It is a typical "Ore Shale" deposit, hosted in a fine-grained siltstone / argillaceous sandstone.
The ore body dips steeply in the upper levels. It thins to the east and west to widths of 4 metres (13.1 ft) to 6 metres (19.7 ft).

Early operations

A Japanese consortium operated the mine from 1968 to 1983.
They developed a 475 metres (1,558.4 ft) vertical mine shaft as well as underground workings and ground-level infrastructure.
A surface-level concentrator had a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes per year.
At its peak, in 1976 the mine produced 1.67 million tonnes of ore graded at 2.5% copper, equivalent to 38,000 tonnes of finished copper.
The concentrator was also used to process ore from the Kinsenda Mine

Kinsenda Mine

The Kinsenda Mine is a copper mine that is being opened in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.It is located near the Zambian border town of Kasumbalesa....

, 20 kilometres (12.4 mi) away.

The mine was closed and the concentrator placed on care-and-maintenance in the early 1990s due to low copper prices and lack of accessible resources.
After strike action by the labor union the concentrator was mothballed and the mine allowed to flood.
Musoshi has an inferred resource below the lowest working level of 24 million tons at 2.4% copper, or 576,000 tons of contained copper.

Recent activity

In 2007, Metorex acquired 38.7% of Copper Resources Corporation from the Forrest Group, as well as 5% of Miniere de Mushoshi et Kinsenda (MMK). After completing the acquisition and reopening Musoshi mine, it was expected to produce up to 12,000 tonnes annually.
Due to a Title Revisitation Process initiated by the DRC government, in February 2009, it was confirmed that the Musoshi mine would be returned to the state-owned Sodimico

Sodimico

Sodimico is a state-owned mining company in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .-Early years:...

.
In October 2010 a South Korean consortium of Taejoo Synthesis Steel, Samsung

Samsung

The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...

, Hyundai

Hyundai

Hyundai ) is a global conglomerate company, part of the Korean chaebol, that was founded in South Korea by one of the most famous businessmen in Korean history: Chung Ju-yung...

 and Daewoo

Daewoo

Daewoo or the Daewoo Group was a major South Korean chaebol . It was founded on 22 March 1967 as Daewoo Industrial and was dismantled by the Korean government in 1999...

said it was willing to revive the Mushoshi mine.