Reality Check: Could Copper do for Zambia what Oil did for the Middle East

For a long time Africa has been mocked for having immense resources whilst languishing almost unapologetically in poverty. The Reality Check series seeks to identify and highlight the hidden architectures that keep African nations behind.

The president of Zambia recently stated his intention for Zambia to exploit it’s copper resources in a similar manner to how oil benefited the Middle East. This is an exciting ambition and somewhat novel on the continent. However the dream is not without challenge. There are real structural issues that keep the dream a dream, and not a lived reality. In this article we will seek to identify the load bearing architecture that needs to be addressed so as to liberate Zambia’s innate advantage.

Oil vs Copper vs Gold

The first thing to understand is that whilst Zambia is a major producer of raw copper, the key arbiter as to whether the ambitions can be achieved is the size of the global Copper market. This currently sits at approximately $385 billion as of 2026. Compare that to the size of the global oil market which sits between $6 - 8 Trillion. Making a further comparison with the global above ground gold market, this currently sits at $31 Trillion, it becomes clear there is opportunity with a bit of work.

Given Zambia’s share of the copper market sitting at 4% the options for growth are in two directions, either keep the percentage of the market the same and grow the total size of the market, or more aggressively compete to gain a larger share of the market.

Looking for answers

The biggest consumer of global copper is electrical and conductive uses, think power grids and transformers which make up about 70% of the total global consumption. Currently the biggest consumers in this area are Asia, Europe and the US. However this hides nascent demand. This resides in the modernization of electrical grids and grid networks on the African continent. Preliminary estimates put the demand for total electrification of the continent at 1 billion metric tons of copper which at current prices would be worth approximately $14.5 trillion. However this is not the end of the story.

Were African nations to come together to initiate a continental coordinated energy grid modernization and infrastructure program, there would still be a need to build the supply architecture and supply chain, with a focus on largely local sourcing. If the entire current global supply were diverted to this endeavor it would be a quarter to half century activity..

Getting real

With possibility in mind let us shift focus. The truth of Zambia today is that it is highly lacking in downstream processing and product capacity. Therefore whilst ground extraction can be scaled the export cut off happens before the real economic value can recirculate back into the nation. What this means is that Zambia would have to begin the very aggressive process of becoming a copper product technology specialist or center of excellence building everything from high quality grid cable and transformers to high tech circuit boards effectively putting Zambia in direct competition with Asia.

So what does this look like? The first part would be a $12 billion overhaul of Zambia’s own energy network in preparation for the spike in demand. This would then be followed by a further $12 billion investment in manufacturing infrastructure. In short a $30 billion project, including talent development and ancillaries.

The figure above would exclude contributions towards the parallel program focused on modernization and unification of the African energy grid network. This program is far larger: the African Union’s Continental Power System Masterplan puts the cost of an integrated continental power system, generation included, at $1.32 trillion to 2040.

Is it worth it?

For Zambia, this goes far beyond current aspirations, for African nations this brings back a key component of sovereignty. Simply the economic impact across the board would be transformational. For the continent it would lead to a nominal doubling of GDP from the current $3 Trillion to $6 Trillion. For Zambia it would lead to a boost to $280 billion in GDP from the $28 billion, driven by copper and related industries alone. With copper as the trigger and other metals made to perform similarly for Zambia a trillion dollar economy in 25 years similar to the Polish transformation is not out of the question.