The Democratic Republic of the Congo has expressed support for a new copper-cobalt facility that will be owned and operated by local investors to formalise the country's artisanal mining sector.
Executives from the two businesses and the government announced that the privately held Congolese company Buenassa will develop the project with help from Washington-based financial advisory firm Delphos International, according to Bloomberg.
Since Congo provides over 70% of the world's cobalt and is among the top three copper producers, it will play an important part in the global transition to green energy.
Industrial mines controlled by foreign companies like Glencore and China's CMOC Group account for the majority of the country's output, although the government and businesses have been under pressure to improve working conditions for informal miners.
Delphos's participation also exemplifies the West's efforts to lessen its reliance on China by increasing domestic production of critical minerals like copper and cobalt.
Delphos is a government contractor that focuses on development and export-credit finance.
Delphos International chairperson Roya Rahmani said that the company decided to join the smelting project in large part because the United States agreed to back a proposal between Congo and neighbouring Zambia to build an electric-vehicle value chain.
The Congolese businessman Eddy Kioni's company, Buenassa, is collaborating with the state-owned Entreprise Generale du Cobalt, which has exclusive rights to all of the cobalt mined in the country by hand.
Since its 2019 inception, when it sought to help legitimize and improve the conditions of so-called artisanal mining, EGC has struggled to establish operations.
“The idea is to reverse the way the minerals and the wealth generated is controlled,” Kioni said in an interview last week on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York.
The hundreds of thousands of Congolese who mine the minerals by hand were a major source of supply for Buenassa's original intention to generate 30,000 t of copper cathode and 5,000 t of cobalt hydroxide. Kioni, though, believes the project will grow with Delphos' and the government's support.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
