Australian Mining spoke with Beltz Mining founding director Nkandu Beltz about how the company hopes to unlock one of the world’s largest repositories of copper.
Behind every business is a story worth telling.
This is especially true for Beltz Mining and its founding director Nkandu Beltz, who began her career in media and communications.
“I studied journalism and news writing, and I’ve worked with different media houses in Australia and Africa,” Beltz told Australian Mining. “I’ve also completed numerous business courses and a human behaviour course.
“There were a couple of reasons I went into the mining sector, one being justice for my people. I come from Zambia’s Copperbelt Province. I grew up in Ndola, which is the heart of the Copperbelt.
“Even though Zambia is the second-largest producer of copper in Africa, and was the fourth largest globally at some point, it remains one of the poorest countries on Earth.
“I felt I kept on telling the story; people would listen to it and then they would go back to their lives. I thought ‘This is my home, these are my people, I’ve got access to land, I come from a copper country and I live in Western Australia, the mining capital of the world’. So why not connect the two?”
From that beginning, Beltz Mining was born in 2019.
When building the company from the ground up, Beltz recognised the importance of assembling a good team.
“When I looked at the companies listed on the ASX (Australian Securities Exchange), not many of them had Africans on their boards,” Beltz said.
“I thought if we’re going to talk honestly about advancing African minerals, we really need to have Africans at the decision-making table.
“Nobody would give me a board seat in the mining sector because I didn’t have the mining background, connections or qualifications. But mining is a business, and just like any other business, it needs to be profitable.
“And that’s how I decided to gather a team to look for ground to explore.”
An Australian publicly unlisted company, Beltz Mining owns various mineral exploration rights in Zambia through its Zambian-registered subsidiary Kopano Mineral Resources.
Exploring for copper and gold, Beltz Mining currently has two greenfield projects in Zambia.
“The first, Mwekera, lies within the old Copperbelt in Ndola,” Beltz said. “I love it because it’s 26km from my childhood home and 16km from the city.
“We’ve got access to infrastructure. There are roads, rail, water, power lines, and it sits on the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It contains approximately 7.5km strike length of classical copper bearing, Lower Roan stratigraphy and has highly deformed Mwashya group sediments that host the Frontier copper mine only 7km north of our property.
“There are some copper showings with quite high grades in this area, so we’re talking about the presence of bornite, chalcopyrite and malachite as well.”
The second project is Luswishi North, which is in the North-Western Province of Zambia, situated on the northern margin of the Luswishi dome within the ‘Domes’ region, known for its high-grade copper, gold and silver deposits.
“We recently completed a geochemical sampling program over 15km strike length of highly prospective Roan stratigraphy,” Beltz said.
“We are looking forward to receiving these results.
“I love working in that part of the country and carrying out exploration with my team. And, so far, we are getting some encouraging results.”
Mwekera has historical drilling data to support Beltz Mining’s exploration.
“The company that used to own the licence (for Mwekera) didn’t do extensive work on the project,” Beltz said. “When we acquired it, we felt very lucky because it’s one of the most highly prospective grounds that everybody wants.
“We have completed geochemical work and the results were quite positive. We’ve also done some magnetics and recently completed an IP (induced polarisation) survey, both of which produced some good results and highlighted several drill targets.
“When we completed the geochemical work, we found coherent copper anomalies from 180 to 2280 parts per million, which may indicate the presence of copper mineralisation. We know there is copper, but we don’t know how deep or wide it goes, so our next stage is to go and drill.”
Beltz Mining has also completed geochemical work at Luswishi North.
“Initially, we had about 500 square kilometres of land, but we had to reduce it by half,” Beltz said. “We’ve now got slightly above 250 square kilometres, which is still quite large.
“We completed the initial geochemical work and are awaiting results. Historic data covering a small part of the tenement looks promising, as do a number of other mineral occurrences. But Jeffrey Foster, who is our recent board member and a brilliant geologist, decided that we should go back and build on the earlier geochemical work, and this time we make it tight.
“We are waiting for the results from our lab in Zambia, but it is an area that already has several existing projects, and the area is predominantly known for copper-gold deposits.”
Zambia, an iconic region for copper mineralisation, celebrated 100 years of copper mining in October 2024.
“Zambia sits on one of the world’s largest sedimented-hosted copper belts,” Beltz said. “What makes Zambia a good jurisdiction to work in is it gained independence in 1964 and is one of the safest countries in Africa.
“The Zambian Government does not restrict you in terms of how much money comes in and out of the country, so you have 100 per cent authority to take all your profits out.
“With our mining code, the mining law has been very consistent. Zambia is a British colony, so our legal system is similar to the UK.”
Beltz also pointed to Zambia’s status as a landlocked country.
“We are surrounded by eight countries and we’ve got access to port,” Beltz said. “Even though you are working in Zambia, you can still get to Tanzania, South Africa, Angola, Namibia or Mozambique without any problems. You can get things in and out.
“Now that the Zambian Government has invested in significant exploration, we’re beginning to understand the mineralisation of the country. There is quite a lot to discover. It’s not just copper, but also gold.”
To unlock this potential, Beltz Mining is working towards ASX listing by targeting an initial public offering (IPO) for the second half of 2025.
“If successful, the ASX listing will help us expand our mineral portfolio,” Beltz said. “Then we will also have enough money to invest into our initial two projects.
“We are in talks with other companies to complete some acquisitions so we can have a healthy-looking portfolio not only in Zambia, but also in Southern Africa. We’re very much looking forward to diversifying.”
Despite various commodity markets recently experiencing fluctuations, Beltz believes copper and its prices are a bit like vanilla ice cream – never out of flavour.
“Copper will always be there,” she said. “I know investing in us will make our projects commercially viable and shareholders will receive a return on investment.
“Our projects sit within a proven copperbelt and can be fast-tracked. I don’t think you could go wrong in investing in our projects.”
This feature will appear in the July 2025 issue of Australian Mining.