China Color Mining (HK01258, share price of 12.85 Hong Kong yuan, market value of 501.41 billion Hong Kong yuan) Incident in February this year, in mid-September again became a hot spot.

On the evening of September 18, China's colour mining industry issued an announcement stating that recently there were media articles on the company's Zambia Humbi-Hi Humidification Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Humbi-Hi Humidification Co., Ltd.) tail dam crash accusations and explanations of the incident.

Picture as a panoramic humidity law (network map)

Graph for environmentally friendly tail mines (network map)

On September 19, a person close to the listed company told the Daily Economic News reporter that the company in which the accident occurred still stopped production, due to the small output of the project, the event had a limited impact on the annual output of China's color mining industry.At present, the re-production needs to wait for the local government to hire the review agency to issue the review report, but there is a certain dispute between the parties about the selection of the review agency.

The Daily Economic News reporter noted that as of September 19, China's colour mining industry has risen more than 150 percent since this year.

China's color mining industry: $80 billion claims lack of basis

China's colour mining said on February 18, a tail dam of Humbi Shi wet law company was stolen due to the anti-penetration film and continued heavy rainfall (local rainfall in Zambia from January 2025 to February is close to the largest rainfall in the same period in the last 20 years) caused by the dam, causing some tail mine leakage.

With regard to the tail dam incident, Humbi He Wet Law has fully fulfilled its restoration and governance obligations in accordance with government instructions and has completed the compensation work for individual farmers in accordance with the damage compensation report issued by the Zambia government. In the future, the company will continue to work closely with the Zambia government to promote environmental impact assessment and restoration of governance.

Recently, it is said that more than 100 local people (it is understood that only 11 people are actually authorized) filed a petition with the court. In the petition registered (but not accepted) by the local court, the Chinese enterprises involved were required to set up an environmental restoration escrow account and deposit 80 billion US dollars (about 624 billion Hong Kong dollars), which is managed by the Zambian government, for environmental restoration and full compensation, and requested an additional 200 million US dollars as an emergency rescue and health/environmental assessment fund.

China Color Mining believes that the above complaint is clearly lacking. In relation to the claim incident, the company has hired a local professional lawyer team to respond actively to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law. At the same time, the company believes that the incident did not have a major impact on the business or financial situation of the group, so it does not constitute an insider news.

Mineral production is still stopped, rework needs to wait for the local government to complete the review

According to the announcement, the local government has repeatedly responded positively to the incident, demonstrating that the incident did not have any significant impact on the surrounding environment and communities.

On August 7, the Zambia government¡¯s chief spokesman said at a news conference that the situation had basically returned to normal and that the government had confidence in ensuring their lives are safe for the people in the affected areas; laboratory tests showed that the pH of the water has returned to normal, the concentration of heavy metals has also continued to decline, and the local water supply company on February 24 has fully restored to normal operation.

On September 10, government officials such as the Vice President of Zambia went to the Humbi-Hi Wet Law Company to conduct an on-site survey, and the Vice President delivered a speech that affirmed the handling of humbi-Hi Wet Law Incident and the results of environmental governance.

According to China Nonferrous Mining's 2025 interim results announcement, the company focuses on copper and cobalt mining, mineral processing, hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy and sales in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From January to June 2025, the company produced a total of 111,300 tons of blister copper and anode copper, a year-on-year decrease of 30.4%; The cumulative production of cathode copper was 72,200 tons, a year-on-year increase of 15.6%.

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On September 19, a person close to the listed company told the Daily Economic News reporter that the company in which the accident occurred still stopped production, due to the small output of the project, the event had a limited impact on the annual output of China's color mining industry.At present, the re-production needs to wait for the local government to hire the review agency to issue the review report, but there is a certain dispute between the parties about the selection of the review agency.

The company planned the risk of the accident last year.

The Daily Economic News reporter noted that in response to the incident, China's colour mining industry had already made related risk plans last year.

China Nonferrous Mining said the claim for sky-high prices of minerals involved in Africa was "unfounded" (data map)

The company previously disclosed in the "Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report 2024" mentioned that the group has established a system of environmental management system. For example, the company requires subsidiaries to develop standards such as the "Tail mine safety and environmental management system" and list tail mine risk prevention as one of the core tasks.

At the same time, the company pointed out that the Zambia region faces the climate risk of ¡°extreme flooding¡± and responded by excavating debris and using diving pump drainage.

In addition, the report also recorded emergency management measures, such as fire emergency rescue exercises by Lua-Araba Copper Milling Company, a comprehensive emergency plan for production safety accidents and regular exercises, which show that the company has established an emergency planning system.

Regarding infrastructure security management, the ESG report focuses mainly on logistics disruptions and equipment supply issues in the Supply Chain Risk Management section.The report shows that the daily physical safety management of critical environmental facilities is not included in a detailed risk assessment list.

ESG risk needs pre-management, not ¡°good after¡±

Shi Yichen, deputy director of the International Institute of Green Finance at the Central University of Finance and Economics, told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that China's nonferrous mining industry is more sincere in handling and dealing with the aftermath of this incident, but it still somewhat reflects the risk awareness of my country's overseas enterprises. There is a slight deficiency.

In his view, risk management is essentially a pre-concept, and risk occurrence is a probability event, and enterprises are prone to chance. and once the risk really occurs, this time the handling is already a post-incident remedy, belonging to "good after" rather than "management".

¡°As with human health, it is important to focus on rehabilitation and disease prevention before you get sick, rather than relying on medication after you get sick. Similarly, enterprises often do not evaluate the risks associated with ESG in advance with insufficient awareness of these risks, and therefore lack adequate management and prevention behavior and measures. Due to the failure to implement many details, when the problem arises, enterprises will have to bear extremely high costs.¡±

In fact, theft, robbery or other types of accidents in overseas mining companies are no longer new.

For example, the purple gold mining industry announced last year that the company¡¯s gold mine in Colombia was robbed by local gangs, which is difficult to estimate; in July this year, another Chinese-owned mining company in Zimbabwe was also robbed by local gangs.

Regarding the ESG governance priorities and risks of Chinese enterprises' overseas mining, Shi Yichen believes that there are two main aspects. First, environmental pollution risks, especially water and soil pollution caused by toxic substances, as well as solid waste and toxic gas emissions, need to be improved in relevant awareness; The second is the risk of social responsibility. This industry is highly dependent on a large number of labor force, so it cannot be taken lightly in terms of labor rights protection and working environment safety. In addition, the community friendliness, interaction between communities and feedback in the S (social) part also need to be paid attention to.