The Kazakh debt-ridden company, Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), plans once again to sell its copper project Frontier in DRC, despite a drop to $400 million in the project’s estimated value. This was revealed to Bloomberg by some banking sources. The company had already tried to sell the project in 2014.  However, it failed due to a global slowdown and drop in commodities prices.

According to one of the sources, ERG which also operates the cobalt and copper mines, Boss Mining and Comide in Congo, intends to leave the country in the next two years.

“It doesn’t seem appropriate to sell the Congolese copper mines, because of the uncertainty that’s still surrounding the review of the mining charter, unless your creditors require you to do so,” said the second source. The latter indicated that the company sent out documents to interested parties three weeks ago. The most plausible buyers are the Chinese companies already operating in the country.

ERG, which owes its main creditors VTB and Sberbank about $6 billion, did not respond to Bloomberg's requests for comment.

 For the record, Frontier Mine which has an annual production capacity of 370, 000 tons of 27% copper sulfide concentrate, is located 2 km from the Zambian border, near Sakania. It was acquired from First Quantum Minerals, by ERG in 2012.