原文链接：https://www.zijinmining.com/news/news-detail-121484.htm

Chen Jinghe was not long out of university when he received an assignment that would change his life. Go to Zijin mountain, he was told, and find gold.

陈景和大学毕业不久，就接到了一项将改变他人生的任务。他被告知，前往紫金山，寻找黄金。

It was 1982, and the geology graduate found himself on forested slopes in the remote, humid highlands of southeastern China. The bet paid off. The deposit his team eventually discovered became the nation’s biggest gold mine — and the foundation for a $67 billion state-owned behemoth that is today driving copper supply growth and gaining ground on some of the most established names in the global resources industry.

1982 年，这位地质学毕业生发现自己身处中国东南部偏远潮湿的高山森林斜坡上。这笔赌注成功了。他的团队最终发现的矿藏成为该国最大的金矿——也是一家价值 670 亿美元的国有巨头的基石。如今，这家巨头正推动铜供应增长，并在全球资源行业中逐渐超越一些最知名的名字。

After a three-decade exploration and acquisition blitz, Zijin Mining Group Co. digs up gold, copper and lithium across multiple continents. A state-run company on paper, it has more frequently behaved like a private firm, with relatively few employees and a flexible, risk-tolerant approach to investments that has put it on track to join BHP Group Ltd. this decade among the very top ranks of copper producers.

经过三十年的探索和收购狂潮，紫金矿业集团在多个大洲挖掘出黄金、铜和锂。这家纸面上是国有企业的公司，更频繁地表现得像一家私营企业，员工相对较少，其灵活且风险容忍度高的投资方式使其有望在本十年内跻身铜产量顶尖行列，与必和必拓集团 Ltd. 并列。

“In the first ten years, we developed gold and copper at Zijinshan. In the second, we expanded across China. And in the past ten years, we’ve turned to global expansion,” the 66-year-old Chen said at the group’s headquarters in Xiamen, a coastal city some three hours’ drive east of the mine that gave the company its name.

“在前十年，我们在紫金山发展了黄金和铜。在第二十年，我们扩展到全中国。而在过去十年，我们转向全球扩张，”这位 66 岁的陈先生在厦门集团总部，这座城市是一个沿海城市，距离以公司命名的矿山大约三小时车程的东边。

Established Western names like Anglo American Plc limited spending over the past decade after the splurges of the last commodities boom, and most have yet to fully loosen the purse strings — but Zijin and peers like CMOC Group Ltd. have pressed ahead through the sector’s wilderness years. The result is that China, long dominant in refining and smelting, has now been able to dramatically expand its access to mined copper.

过去十年，像英美资源公司这样的西方老牌企业经历了上一轮商品繁荣时期的疯狂扩张后，开销一直居高不下，而大多数企业尚未完全放松开支——但紫金矿业和像中金矿业集团这样的同行却在这行当的荒芜岁月中奋勇前行。结果是中国，长期以来在精炼和冶炼领域占据主导地位，现在能够大幅扩大对开采铜的获取。

Zijin’s production of the metal has more than tripled over the past five years as new operations ramp up in Africa, the Balkans and at home. On an equity basis, it was the sixth-largest copper miner last year.

紫金矿业过去五年金属产量增长了三倍多，非洲、巴尔干和国内的新项目正在逐步扩大生产。按股权计算，去年它是全球第六大铜矿生产商。

To a certain extent, the expansion tracks the nation’s broader rise to global growth engine and top commodity consumer. But Zijin is emblematic of a coterie of Chinese companies — both private and state-owned — changing the global metals landscape by generating a wave of mine supply, outpacing others with innovation and billions of dollars of investment, often in less-than-prime locations. China already dominated lithium refining, but has built up a robust lithium supply chain. Nickel too stands transformed.

在某种程度上，这种扩张反映了国家作为全球增长引擎和主要商品消费国的整体崛起。但紫金矿业是众多中国公司——包括私营和国有公司——的缩影，它们通过创造一轮矿山供应、以创新和数十亿美元的投资超越他人，改变着全球金属格局，这些投资往往投向非核心地区。中国已经主导了锂精炼，并建立起完善的锂供应链。镍也发生了变革。

Chen has previously described Zijin’s position as firmly in “the middle transition zone” between state firms and private rivals.

陈曾表示，紫金矿业的地位处于“国有企业和私营竞争对手之间的中间过渡地带”。

"They’re the fastest-growing copper miner and they fly a bit under the radar. They’ve ramped up mines internationally very successfully," said Colin Hamilton, managing director for commodities research at BMO Capital Markets.

“他们是增长最快的铜矿商，而且他们低调行事。他们在国际上成功扩大了矿山规模，” BMO 资本市场大宗商品研究主管科林·汉密尔顿表示。

"People ask me if China could do in copper what they have done in lithium. The answer is, it's a lot harder in copper, but a lot of the copper growth in the next few years is coming from places with significant Chinese investments."

人们问我中国能否在铜上复制他们在锂上取得的成就。答案是，在铜上难度要大得多，但未来几年铜产量的增长主要来自那些有大量中国投资的地方。

Granted, the blueprint is not as easy to follow as it was, between worsening geopolitical headwinds and a global scramble for critical minerals.

诚然，由于地缘政治风险加剧和全球对关键矿物的争夺，如今这个蓝图不像以前那样容易遵循。

“As a Chinese company, future expansion will be more difficult,” Chen said, sitting back in an armchair in the company’s town-center office. “As investors, we cannot ignore these pressures.”

“作为一家中国公司，未来的扩张将更加困难，”陈先生坐在公司市中心办公室的扶手椅上说道。“作为投资者，我们不能忽视这些压力。”

Resistance to Chinese acquisitions is growing across Western markets, and Canada’s curbs on foreign investment in mining have had particular significance for Zijin. The company has done more than $4 billion worth of deals with Toronto-listed companies since 2015. Even so, its plans to buy 15% of Toronto-listed copper miner Solaris Resources Inc. were scuttled in May, after a lengthy review by the federal government.

西方市场对中国收购的抵制情绪日益增长，加拿大对矿业外国投资的限制对紫金矿业具有特别重要的意义。自 2015 年以来，该公司与多伦多上市公司的交易额已超过 40 亿美元。即便如此，其收购多伦多上市铜矿商 Solaris Resources Inc. 15%股份的计划在 5 月被联邦政府经过长期审查后搁置。

Solaris has since said it will relocate its head office to Quito. Zijin says it won’t give up on Canadian targets.

Solaris 随后表示将把总部迁至基多。紫金矿业表示不会放弃加拿大目标。

“All of this is quite regrettable,” Chen said, adding miners would feel the absence of Chinese capital. Firms like Zijin, which can take a longer, strategic view on raw material investments, have long been an important funding source for the junior mining sector.

“所有这一切都十分令人遗憾，”陈先生说，并补充说矿企会感受到中国资本的缺失。像紫金矿业这样能够对原材料投资采取长远、战略眼光的企业，长期以来一直是初级矿业领域的重要资金来源。

But opportunities for Zijin will still come, he said, even if they emerge from locations where large, blue-chip Western miners still fear to tread.

但他表示，即使这些机会来自那些大型西方蓝筹矿企仍不敢涉足的地方，紫金矿业的机会依然会到来。

“In order to have better options, we go to places with the richest resources in the world, even in places with relatively low development levels, or to places that many international mining companies consider problematic,” Chen said. “This is our differentiation.”

“为了获得更好的选择，我们前往世界上资源最丰富的地区，即使是在相对发展水平较低的地方，或者前往许多国际矿业公司认为存在问题的地区，”陈先生说。“这就是我们的差异化。”

Not everything has gone Chen’s way over the past decades. In 2010, the company suffered a serious setback when acid leaked from its copper smelter at Zijinshan into the local river, killing enough fish to feed 72,000 people for a year and causing widespread panic. The toxic leak led to some Zijin and local government officials being charged, and Chen was handed a fine.

过去几十年里，陈先生并非事事顺利。2010 年，公司遭遇严重挫折，当时酸液从其紫金山铜冶炼厂泄漏到当地河流中，导致足够喂养 72,000 人一年的鱼类死亡，并引发广泛恐慌。有毒泄漏导致一些紫金和当地政府官员被起诉，陈先生也被罚款。

It was, Chen says, a mistake made by a young company. The company put up a memorial after the disaster, and marks the occasion annually. Today, he says, standards in some respects exceed those of Western counterparts.

陈先生说，这是一个年轻公司犯下的错误。公司在灾难后竖立了纪念碑，并每年纪念这一事件。如今，他说，在某些方面，标准已经超过了西方同行。

More recently, Zijin has been swept up in US accusations of forced labor use in China’s western Xinjiang region. Its copper-gold unit there was sanctioned by the US in August, a development Chen said he met with “total shock and disbelief”. He said salaries were nearly double the local average, and added the company’s recruitment criteria required employees to be capable and to join of their own accord.

最近，紫金矿业卷入了美国对中国新疆地区使用强迫劳动的指控。其位于当地的铜金业务部门在 8 月份受到了美国的制裁，陈先生表示他对此感到“完全震惊和不相信”。他说，员工的工资几乎是当地平均水平的两倍，并补充说公司的招聘标准要求员工要有能力，并且自愿加入。

Back at Zijinshan, in the earliest days, Chen’s team sought to find anything more lucrative than the scraps of gold that had been spotted in the area as far back as the Song dynasty, a thousand years earlier.

回到紫金山，在最初的日子里，陈的团队试图寻找比早在宋代就已发现的这片区域中的金块更有利可图的资源，那是千年前的事了。

He led his team into the forest, and toward what turned out to be a major gold lode below the mountain’s peak. Under that, they found copper. Extraction didn’t start until the 1990s, but it turned Zijin into a poster child for Chinese mining.

他带领团队进入森林，朝着最终发现的山顶下方一条主要金矿脉前进。在那之下，他们发现了铜。直到 20 世纪 90 年代才开始开采，但这使紫金成为中国采矿业的典范。

In Chen’s telling, the experience ultimately defined the company.

在陈的叙述中，这段经历最终定义了这家公司。

“Technology and innovation is our key competitive advantage,” Chen said, a floor-to-ceiling photograph of Zijinshan looming behind him. “We have our own research, design, construction capacity, so our projects can be completed very fast.”

“技术和创新是我们的核心竞争力，”陈说，他身后是一幅从地板到天花板的高墙照片，描绘着紫金山。 “我们拥有自己的研发、设计、建设能力，因此我们的项目可以非常快速地完成。”

In reality, deals have mattered almost as much, accelerating after a 2003 Hong Kong listing. From 2006 until last year, Zijin spent at least $7 billion on acquisitions, most of them completed overseas and in the past decade. It invested in Glencore Plc’s convertible bond in 2009, a means of gaining information and, the group said at the time, access. It moved into battery metals in 2021, with Argentinian lithium.

实际上，交易几乎同样重要，自 2003 年在香港上市后加速。从 2006 年到去年，紫金至少花费了 70 亿美元进行收购，其中大部分在国外完成，并在过去十年中完成。2009 年，它投资了 Glencore Plc 的可转换债券，这是一种获取信息和，集团当时表示，获得渠道的方式。2021 年，它进入电池金属领域，与阿根廷的锂矿合作。

“We always know that most of the world’s highest-quality and largest mineral resources are controlled by Western mining companies,” Chen said. “As a latecomer, the opportunities for acquisitions were always going to be relatively difficult.”

“我们一直知道，世界上大部分最高质量和最大的矿产资源都由西方矿业公司控制，”陈说。 “作为一个后来者，收购的机会总是相对困难的。”

Many deals have been small — the biggest to date was Canada’s Nevsun Resources in 2018, snapped up for $1.4 billion in cash. But it’s the early-stage swoops that Zijin stands out for. It’s been enough to ensure the company is worth close to nine times more than it was a decade ago and can credibly target the position of top three copper miner. Output from Zijin’s mines is expected to climb to as much as 1.6 million tons of copper by 2028, up from 1 million last year — hefty, even if that includes some production attributable to other shareholders.

许多交易规模都较小——迄今为止最大的一笔是 2018 年加拿大 Nevsun Resources，以 14 亿美元现金被收购。但中金公司的早期收购行动尤为突出。这些收购足以确保该公司价值比十年前增长了将近九倍，并可以可信地瞄准成为铜矿前三名的地位。预计到 2028 年，中金公司的矿山铜产量将攀升至 160 万吨，较去年的 100 万吨有所增长——尽管这其中包含了一些归属于其他股东的生产量。

One such risk was a 2015 gamble on Canadian maverick Robert Friedland and his Kamoa project. Then, most of the industry was in debt and this was at best a promising project, tucked away in a remote corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

其中一项风险是 2015 年中金公司对加拿大特立独行的罗伯特·弗里德兰及其 Kamoa 项目的豪赌。当时，大多数行业都负债累累，而该项目充其量只是一个位于刚果民主共和国偏远角落的潜力项目。

Now it’s one of the world’s biggest. Zijin bought into the mine and took a near-10% stake in Friedland’s Ivanhoe Mines Ltd, later increased. Today, Zijin and Ivanhoe both have a share in the operation of just under 40%.

如今，它已成为全球最大的项目之一。中金公司收购了该矿山，并持有弗里德兰 Ivanhoe Mines Ltd 近 10%的股份，后来增持。如今，中金公司和 Ivanhoe 在运营中都拥有近 40%的股份。

“He's been the high bidder for the best assets,” Friedland told Bloomberg. “And that is exactly Warren Buffett's motto. Warren Buffett said, when I look back at my career, I always made the most money overpaying for the best assets.”

“他是最佳资产的最高出价者，”弗里德兰告诉彭博社。“这正是沃伦·巴菲特的信条。沃伦·巴菲特说，当我回顾我的职业生涯时，我总是通过为最佳资产支付过高的价格获得了最多的利润。”

The mine produced almost 394,000 metric tons of copper concentrate in 2023 and Chen said Zijin was considering a pathway toward 1 million tons of annual output — ambitious, given the continued logistics and power supply challenges at Kamoa-Kakula.

该矿在 2023 年生产了近 394,000 公吨的铜精矿，陈表示，紫金矿业正在考虑一条通往每年 100 万吨产量的路径——考虑到卡莫亚-卡库拉的持续物流和电力供应挑战，这是一个雄心勃勃的目标。

“Our biggest regret in terms of M&A is that we didn’t manage to buy all of Ivanhoe at that time,” Chen said. “Robert was not willing.”

“我们在并购方面最大的遗憾是，当时我们没有成功收购全部的伊凡赫奥，”陈说。“罗伯特不愿意。”

Zijin’s copper surge is well timed. The prospect of surging demand, as the energy transition takes hold, has already pushed the red metal to a record earlier this year. Large-scale new mines like Kamoa are rare.

紫金矿业的铜产量激增时机恰到好处。随着能源转型逐步推进，不断增长的需求前景已使红金属在今年早些时候达到创纪录价格。像卡莫亚这样的大型新矿很少见。

“They are unburdened by the self-imposed constraints that Western mining companies — which are very risk adverse — face,” Friedland said. “It's difficult to conceive of a future where Zijin doesn't continue to have world leading growth.”

“他们没有像西方矿业公司——这些公司非常厌恶风险——所面临的自我强加的约束，”弗里德兰说。“很难想象一个未来，其中紫金矿业不会继续保持世界领先的成长。”