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Democratic Republic of Congo’s state miner is trying to sell its share of cobalt from a joint-venture project, as the country seeks more control over metals key to the energy transition.
Gecamines has requested bids for the firm’s portion of cobalt output from CMOC Group’s giant Tenke Fungurume mine, in which it has a 20% interest, according to people familiar with the matter. It’s the first time the state-owned company is marketing its cobalt, with the joint ventures previously having sold all the production, one of the people said, asking not to be identified as the negotiations are private.
Commodity traders Trafigura Group and Mercuria Energy Group are among the bidders for Gecamines’ Tenke cobalt, the people said. Tenke exported 361,000 tons of copper and 23,000 tons of cobalt last year, making it one of Congo’s biggest mines, according to government data.
Gecamines, Mercuria and Trafigura declined to comment. CMOC confirmed that Gecamines has the right to market 20% of Tenke’s production under an agreement concluded last year.
Gecamines is also selling its own copper output, Bloomberg News reported last month, when the firm was assessing bids for 90,000 tons of the metal mined at Tenke. Gecamines held a smaller successful tender earlier this year for copper production at another joint venture.
Congo extracts cobalt as a byproduct of copper mining, but prices of the battery metal have slumped by more than two-thirds since early 2022 as rising output resulted in a glut. Gecamines has received many more bids for Tenke’s copper than for its cobalt, one of the people said.
Congo – which accounted for about three-quarters of global cobalt production last year – is evaluating measures to boost the metal’s price, including through potential export quotas, Bloomberg reported in April.
(By William Clowes)
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