The mine produces high-grade oxide ore that was transported to Zambia for processing at the SX/EW facility in Bwana.

[1] Both the mine and the Bwana Mkubwa facility 35 kilometres (22 mi) away were owned by First Quantum Minerals (FQM).

[1] In December 2007 Moise Katumbi, the governor of Katanga province, ordered First Quantum Minerals to stop exporting copper ore from the Lonshi mine to Zambia.

[5] In May 2010 a Congolese court ruled that FQM's Lonshi and Frontier copper mines had been awarded illegally and that they should revert to state-owned Sodimico.

In August 2011 the Bloomberg news agency reported that Sodimico had sold its 30% share in the Frontier and Lonshi mines for under than one sixteenth of their estimated value.