Livingstone \/ AFP Emmet<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFaced with the fall in cobalt prices, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) recently suspended for four months any export of this strategic ore of which it is the world’s leading producer, playing a potentially double -edged gun. The unexpected measure could move away from potential investors, but also encourage buyers, ultra -dependent from Congolese resources, to find alternatives, warn certain specialists. In 2024, according to the American Institute of Geological Studies, the DRC provided 76 % of world cobalt production, an essential ore for the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries and whose demand has exploded since 2000.<\/p>\n\nRead also |<\/span> Article reserved for our subscribers<\/span><\/span> In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the great isolation of F\u00e9lix Tshisekedi <\/span> <\/div>\n Read later<\/span> <\/button> <\/p>\n<\/section>\nThe Congolese government justified its decision by the necessary “Stabilization of the cobalt market <\/em>[\u2026] Faced with the overabundance of supply on the international market \u00bb<\/em>which has divided the prices by four in three years. This overabundance “Is mainly due to the increase in the ore supply from DRC”<\/em>explains to the Agency France-Presse (AFP) Robert Searle, analyst of the Fastmarkets firm, specializing in raw materials. According to him, the offer was “Particularly increased in the past two years”<\/em>in particular from the company China Molybdenum, one of the main world producers of Cobalt, which operates two of the largest mines in the world in the DRC (Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu).<\/p>\nIn addition, Cobalt is a sub-product of copper, whose high courses have boosted the extraction, thus feeding excess cobalt supply, according to experts. Finally, manufacturers, especially Chinese, show a growing interest in cobalt-free batteries, called LFP (Lithium-Fer-Phosphate), less efficient but cheaper, reducing demand.<\/p>\n
The DRC is among the least developed countries in the world. In 2024, nearly three -quarters of the Congolese lived with less than 2.15 dollars per day, according to the World Bank. However, the country’s subsoil, often described as “geological scandal”, is one of the richest on the planet. In 2023, the mining sector contributed to 70 % of the economic growth of the DRC. But he is plagued by a chronic smuggling, as well as by criminal and corruption networks-a situation that came to worsen the resurgence, in 2021, of a conflict in the oriental regions of North Kivu and South Kivu.<\/p>\n
“Organized crime”<\/h2>\n Cobalt production, mainly extracted from the mines of the province of Katanga (southeast), is spared by this conflict which rages more than 1,000 kilometers away. But his supply chain is “Save by complex levels of organized crime”<\/em>notably “Illegal mining, smuggling and collusion between illegal minors, organized criminal bands and state actors”<\/em>noted in June 2024 Oluwole Ojewale, researcher at the Enact, an observatory for the fight against transnational organized crime in Africa.<\/p>\nIn 2019, the Congolese government created an authority for regulating strategic minerals, Arecoms, and attempted to regulate the craft mines sector by notably prohibiting the work of child and pregnant women or by imposing environmental impact studies and traceability measures. He also entrusted the monopoly on the marketing of cobalt resulting from artisanal and semi-industrial extraction to a public company, the general company of Cobalt. A recent decree, published at the end of February, extended this monopoly, never really applied.<\/p>\n\nRead also |<\/span> Article reserved for our subscribers<\/span><\/span> The mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo arouse the greed of local and global powers <\/span> <\/div>\n Read later<\/span> <\/button> <\/p>\n<\/section>\n“The State does not have the capacity to control and enforce the rules”<\/em> that he enacted, notes Oluwole Ojewale. And NGOs continue to denounce the employment of children, dangerous working conditions and corruption in craft mines. The part of the cobalt resulting from the artisanal extraction is “Very difficult to assess precisely”<\/em>according to Robert Searle, who estimates that she has dropped in recent years and represents between 3 % and 5 % of total production in 2024. According to him, we can “Reasonably say”<\/em> that the artisanal extraction, potentially exported illegally, “Is not responsible for the excess offer”.<\/em><\/p>\nThe suspension of exports began to bring up prices, especially on the Chinese market. China has stocks, but companies consider them insufficient to cover the four months of suspension and, for lack of alternative suppliers, prices could get carried away in the second quarter, warns Robert Searle, for whom this policy includes risks for the DRC. The ban, which “Taken by surprise”<\/em> Chinese companies having “Invested billions of dollars in the Congolese mining industry”,<\/em> “Could brake additional investments”<\/em>he fears, but also to cool the potential Western investors that the DRC tries to attract.<\/p>\n\n Newsletter<\/span> <\/p>\n“Le Monde Afrique”<\/p>\n
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Furthermore, “An increase in cobalt prices and disturbances <\/em>[d\u2019approvisionnement] could lead to greater use of batteries with technologies using less cobalt or LFP batteries \u00bb<\/em> In the coming years, Robert Searle advances.<\/p>\n\n The world with AFP<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/section>\n Reuse this content <\/section>\n<\/p><\/div>\nTm-En-1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tenke Fungurume Cobalt mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo in June 2023. Livingstone \/ AFP Emmet Faced with the fall in cobalt prices, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) recently suspended for four months any export of this strategic ore of which it is the world’s leading producer, playing a potentially double -edged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4171,5986,23248,2368,23249,4874,23250,11649,8886],"class_list":["post-104881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-batteries","tag-cobalt","tag-drc","tag-electric","tag-essential","tag-exports","tag-manufacture","tag-ore","tag-suspends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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