The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that Barrick Gold plans to spend nearly $2-billion (U.S.) to turn its Lumwana mine in Zambia into a "superpit" that transforms the once-unprofitable copper project. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says that the Lumwana Super Pit expansion aims to double last year's annual copper production, reaching roughly 240,000 metric tonnes of copper annually over a 36-year life of the mine, the company said Wednesday in a statement. Barrick plans to finish a feasibility study by the end of next year, bringing expanded processing plant production forward to 2028. The project is a key part of ambitions by the world's second-largest gold producer to boost its status as a copper producer as global demand for the wiring metal is poised to surge. Barrick has said it wants copper to account for 30 per cent of overall profit by the end of the decade, largely from Lumwana and its $7-billion (U.S.) Reko Diq project in Pakistan. The expansion is expected to help Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema reverse the nation's falling copper output. Constant changes to Zambia's tax code and a hostile business environment from its previous government have spooked investors and slowed investment.