Reviewed August 2026 against MMG Limited’s investor disclosures, the U.S. International Trade Administration’s country commercial guide, and Kitco spot copper pricing.

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Khoemacau Copper Mine is an underground copper-silver operation in Botswana’s Kalahari Copper Belt, owned through a joint venture in which MMG Limited holds a 55% controlling interest. Khoemacau Copper Mining (Pty) Ltd is the legal operating company; “Khoemacau Copper Mine,” “Khoemacau mine,” and “Khoemacau copper mining” all refer to the same Zone 5 underground operation and its Boseto concentrator. As of MMG’s operations disclosures checked in August 2026, the mine ships 43,000 to 53,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate a year, and a board-approved expansion is set to lift that to 130,000 tonnes annually once a new processing plant reaches full output in the first half of 2028.

That single fact — a name that covers one legal entity, one mine, and one processing plant — is why searches for “khoemacau,” “khoemacau mine,” “khoemacau copper,” and “khoemacau copper mining (pty) ltd” all lead here. Below is what each of those searches is actually looking for: ownership, location, current and future production, cost economics, and where to check the numbers yourself once they move past what’s printed here.

Table of Contents

1. Who Owns Khoemacau Copper Mining (Pty) Ltd?

Khoemacau began as a project of Cupric Canyon Capital, which secured $565 million in project financing in February 2019 (later increased to $650 million by July 2019) and started underground development in early 2020. The mine poured its first copper-silver concentrate in June 2021, according to Mining Technology’s Khoemacau project profile.

That changed in November 2023. MMG Limited, the Hong Kong-listed miner majority-owned by China Minmetals, announced a share purchase agreement on November 21, 2023 to acquire Khoemacau’s parent company for an effective enterprise value of $1,875 million, calculated on a cash-free, debt-free basis as of a March 31, 2023 locked-box date, per MMG’s own acquisition announcement. The deal closed in March 2024. MMG’s operations page states the company holds a 55% controlling interest in the joint venture that owns Khoemacau — the clearest current answer to “who owns Khoemacau copper mine.”

Note the naming pattern: “Khoemacau Copper Mining Pty Ltd” is the operating company; “Khoemacau Copper Mine” is the physical asset it runs; “MMG” and its former parent “Cupric Canyon Capital” are the ownership layer above it. If you’re searching for the company’s official filings or its Botswana Chamber of Mines listing, search “Khoemacau Copper Mining Pty Ltd” specifically — searching “Khoemacau” alone mostly surfaces MMG’s investor material, since MMG has consolidated the mine’s reporting since March 2024.

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2. Where the Mine Is and What It Produces

Khoemacau sits in the Kalahari Copper Belt across Botswana’s Ghanzi and Ngamiland districts, on a land package Mining Technology puts at 4,040 km². The main deposit, Zone 5, runs a 4.2 km strike length at roughly 10 m average thickness. As of a June 2020 estimate cited by Mining Technology, proven and probable reserves stood at 33.96 million tonnes grading 2.03% copper and 19.66 g/t silver — a high-grade deposit by global standards, comparable in grade terms to producing districts along North America’s own copper corridors, including the Colorado Mineral Belt and British Columbia’s porphyry copper trends.

Ore is trucked roughly 35 km to the Boseto concentrator, which runs a conventional three-stage crushing and sulphide flotation circuit at a design capacity of 3.65 million tonnes per year, per MMG’s Khoemacau operations page. Mining Technology’s project data describes concentrate grading up to 40% copper and 375 g/t silver. MMG currently guides 43,000 to 53,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate a year from that plant, against a stated mine life of 20-plus years from the current reserve base.

Sources: MMG’s Khoemacau operations page (checked Aug 2026) and International Mining’s Dec 30, 2025 report on the expansion board approval.

3. The Expansion: 60,000 to 130,000 Tonnes a Year

MMG’s board approved full execution of the Khoemacau expansion on December 30, 2025, following a feasibility study completed in 2025 that priced the project at roughly $936 million, per MMG’s own disclosure and confirmed by International Mining’s coverage of the approval. Total capital committed, including spend before 2026, comes to approximately $900 million. The plan extends mining into the Zone 5 North, Mango, and Zeta North-East deposits and builds a new 4.5 million-tonne-per-year processing plant alongside the existing Boseto circuit, pushing total milling capacity above 8 million tonnes a year. First concentrate from the expanded circuit is targeted for the first half of 2028.

Beyond that, MMG has flagged a further growth case reaching 200,000 tonnes of copper a year, with a prefeasibility study the company says will start in 2026 — a potential fourth stage, not yet a committed project.

On staffing, MMG’s own operations page states the current on-site headcount (employees and contractors combined) at over 2,200, 90% of them Botswana citizens. That workforce is expected to peak above 4,000 during expansion construction before settling near 3,200 once the new plant is in steady-state production — a common pattern for mine expansions, where the construction spike is temporary and the permanent operating headcount lands between the pre- and post-expansion figures.

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4. Copper Economics: Cost, Price, and Margin

Cost is the number that decides whether an expansion like this pays off. International Mining’s December 2025 report on the board approval states Khoemacau’s C1 cash cost ran at $2.05 per pound in the first half of 2025, and that MMG’s life-of-mine target once the expansion is running is below $1.60 per pound. Against that, copper itself traded at $6.4608 per pound bid ($14,243.65 per tonne) as of 1:32 p.m. New York time on August 9, 2026, according to Kitco’s live copper price page — a figure that moves within minutes, so check that link directly rather than reusing the number printed here.

At a $2.05 cost against a price above $6.40, Khoemacau’s current margin runs near $4.35 per pound before treatment charges, freight, royalties, and tax — and that gap widens further once the life-of-mine target cost takes hold. The catch is that both sides of that equation move: cash costs shift with fuel, labor, and grade; copper prices swing with global demand, and copper touched an all-time intraday high near $6.90 per pound on August 6, 2026 before pulling back, so any single snapshot ages fast.

Run your own scenario below using MMG’s published cost figures and the current copper price.

5. Khoemacau in Botswana’s Economy

Botswana is still overwhelmingly a diamond economy. According to the U.S. International Trade Administration’s country commercial guide, diamonds account for approximately 85% of Botswana’s foreign earnings and about one-third of government revenue, and De Beers’ rough diamond production fell 36% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2025 even as sales value rose 14% over the same comparison. That decline is exactly the pressure pushing Botswana toward copper. The same ITA guide names three other active copper operators in the country alongside Khoemacau:

Where the ITA guide doesn’t give a production figure, that’s stated plainly above rather than estimated — those operators’ own investor pages or Statistics Botswana’s mining index are the places to find current output. Khoemacau alone, once its expansion completes, would produce more copper in concentrate a year than Botswana’s entire recorded copper export value was worth as recently as 2023, when national copper exports totaled roughly $6.8 million by one trade-data estimate — underscoring how much of Botswana’s copper trade is still ahead of it rather than behind it.

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6. How to Track Khoemacau’s Numbers Yourself

Every figure in this article has a shelf life. Cash costs, production tonnes, and workforce numbers get restated every quarter; the copper price restates every minute. Rather than treating any single number here as permanent, use this checklist to pull the current one:

• Production and cost guidance: MMG publishes quarterly production reports and an annual report with a dedicated Khoemacau section — start at mmg.com/operations/khoemacau for the current run-rate and cost figures.
• Expansion milestones: MMG’s investor news centre and Hong Kong Exchange filings carry construction updates against the H1 2028 target; industry trade press such as International Mining tends to cover board approvals and schedule changes within days.
• Copper price: Kitco’s live copper page updates continuously and timestamps every quote — never reuse a printed price without checking the date on it.
• Botswana’s broader mining sector: Statistics Botswana’s Indices of the Physical Volume of Mining Production and the U.S. International Trade Administration’s country guide both restate national-level diamond and base-metals figures on a recurring schedule.
• Company identity checks: If you need to confirm “Khoemacau Copper Mining (Pty) Ltd” as a legal entity (for supplier due diligence, financing, or a filing), the Botswana Chamber of Mines maintains a member listing separate from MMG’s investor-facing pages.

That’s the durable part of this page: the method for getting a current number outlives any specific number printed above.

7. Satellite Monitoring for Copper Operations

Operations at Khoemacau’s scale — an expanding underground footprint, a new 4.5 Mt/yr plant under construction, and mining extending into three additional deposits — are exactly the kind of site where remote monitoring closes the gap between quarterly reports and what’s happening on the ground. Farmonaut builds satellite-based tools originally for agriculture that carry over directly to mining and infrastructure sites:

• Fleet management tracking for haul trucks and logistics between a pit and a concentrator like Boseto.
• Carbon footprinting for emissions reporting tied to expansion permits or green financing conditions.
• Blockchain traceability for concentrate shipments moving from mine to buyer.
• Multispectral imagery for land-disturbance and construction-progress monitoring across a growing mine lease.

Satellite-based verification for financing and insurance
Lenders financing a mine expansion or insuring equipment on-site can use the same satellite verification approach Farmonaut applies to agricultural loans — independent, remotely-gathered evidence of what’s actually being built, rather than relying solely on self-reported construction updates.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Khoemacau Copper Mine is, at its core, one high-grade underground deposit in the Kalahari Copper Belt, run by Khoemacau Copper Mining (Pty) Ltd, majority-owned by MMG Limited since March 2024, and mid-way through a board-approved expansion that roughly triples its output by the first half of 2028. Every number attached to that story — the 43,000-to-53,000-tonne current run rate, the $2.05-per-pound cash cost, the $900 million expansion budget, the 2,200-strong workforce — has a publication date behind it and a source that restates it on a schedule.

That’s the way to use this page going forward: not as a fixed snapshot, but as a map of exactly where MMG, the U.S. International Trade Administration, and live pricing services like Kitco keep the current numbers, so the next check takes minutes instead of a fresh search.