Production from a large new zinc mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo will be split between several new buyers including trading giant Trafigura Group, after rival Glencore backed away from a previous deal for the entire supply.

Ivanhoe Mines’ Kipushi zinc mine started production in the past few days and is finalizing deals to sell its zinc to Trafigura, China’s Citic and Boliden, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the matter isn’t public.

Kipushi is set to be one of the world’s largest zinc mines, with output planned at more than 250 000 t/y and will produce a semi-processed form of ore known as concentrate that is currently in tight supply.

For Trafigura, the deal will help cement its position in the zinc concentrates market, with neither of its major competitors Glencore or IXM getting a share of the offtake. Glencore, long a dominant player in the zinc market, has recently been making changes at the top of its zinc unit and taking steps to exit certain investments.

The market for zinc concentrates has been extremely tight, with processing fees paid by miners to smelters plunging as mine supply disappoints and smelters in Europe reopen in the wake of the 2021-2022 energy crisis. On the spot market, the so-called treatment charges have fallen to just $5 a ton, the lowest since at least 2014, according to Fastmarkets, while annually agreed “benchmark” treatment charges dropped 40% this year.

GLENCORE DEAL
Ivanhoe last year announced that it had signed a term sheet to sell the entire zinc output of the Kipushi mine to Glencore in exchange for a $250-million financing facility.

But since then, Glencore has pulled back from that deal, the people said, amid several senior changes in its zinc department. Nick Popovic, the co-head of zinc and copper trading who was pictured at the signing ceremony for the Kipushi term sheet, retired from the company a few months later.

Meanwhile IXM, the metals trader owned by China’s CMOC Group Ltd., had been in advanced negotiations for a share of the offtake from Kipushi but failed to agree a loan deal in time, the people said. IXM’s head of lead and zinc, Xavier-Alexandre Ortiz, left the company last week, with a spokesperson saying that “ambitions for the business differed.”

Ivanhoe declined to comment. The miner had previously said that it had received “significant additional interest” from potential buyers of Kipushi concentrate since agreeing the term sheet with Glencore, and that it was in negotiations with numerous parties for deals that would include financing of “$200-million or higher.”

While the contracts are being finalized, it’s still possible they may not all result in deals.

Spokespeople for Citic Metal, which owns a 24% stake in Ivanhoe, and Trafigura declined to comment. Boliden, which owns zinc smelters in Finland and Norway, said on Tuesday it does not comment on ongoing contract negotiations and had not signed a contract for supply from Kipushi. Glencore and IXM also declined to comment.

Glencore’s failure to go ahead with the deal it had agreed last year comes amid wider changes in its zinc unit — a market where it once dominated, boasting a more than 50% share of the “addressable” market for zinc metal and concentrates in its 2011 IPO prospectus.

In addition to Popovic’s retirement, Glencore earlier this year named a new head of its lead and zinc assets, Suresh Vadnagra, replacing the previous co-heads Denis Hamel and Aline Coté. The company also recently sold its controlling stake in Peruvian zinc miner Volcan Cia Minera.