Mukondo Mine is a copper and cobalt mine in Katanga Province,

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. As of 2011 it was operated by the Central African Mining and Exploration Company (CAMEC). It may be the richest cobalt reserve in the world.

Location

In July 2008 CAMEC said the resource estimate at Mukondo was 70 million tons of ore containing 1.5 million tons of copper and 500,000 tonnes of cobalt. The cobalt grade averages 1.2%, an exceptionally high concentration. The Mukondo mountain has a height of over . Mining is relatively cheap since waste rock can simply be pushed off the mountain rather than hauled away.

Ownership changes

In January 2001 the Kababancola Mining Company (KMC) was established as a copper and cobalt mining partnership for a 25-year term. Tremalt, controlled by the Zimbabwean businessman John Bredenkamp, held 80% of KMC while the state-owned

Gécamines La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines) is a Congolese commodity trading and mining company headquartered in Lubumbashi, in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a state-controlled corporation founded in ...

held 20% In June 2006

Dan Gertler Dan Gertler (born 23 December 1973) is an Israeli billionaire businessman in natural resources and the founder and president of the DGI (Dan Gertler International) group of companies. He has diamond and copper mining interests in the Democratic ...

bought

Tremalt Tremalt Limited was a mining company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands which owned assets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It was the vehicle for a highly criticized deal in 2001 in which it bought copper assets at far below ...

for about $60m. The sale was to Prairie International, of which Dan Gertler's family trust was a major shareholder. Tremalt owned 80% of Savannah Mining, a successor to KMC that held concessions C17 and C18 in Katanga Province and 50% of the Mukondo project. Billy Rautenbach, a Zimbabwe businessman, owned Boss Mining, which controlled the other 50% of the mine. In a February 2006 deal, Rautenbach gained about 17% of the CAMEC shares when CAMEC bought 80% of Boss. Boss Mining had rented and operated Bredenkamp's half of Mukondo. Gertler terminated this arrangement when he bought Tremalt. Gertler and CAMEC made plans to combine the Mukondo assets into a new holding company to be operated by CAMEC. Billy Rautenbach would be paid out and excluded from ownership in the new company due to the hostile relations that had developed between him and the DRC government. CAMEC and Prairie International signed the MOU to complete the deal in November 2007. In September 2009 the

Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation PLC (ENRC) was a public, Kazakhstan/Central African-focused, multinational leading diversified natural resources company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It had activities in integrated mining, proc ...

(ENRC) of

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

made a £584-million cash offer for CAMEC. The deal was closed in November 2009. In 2018,

increased its share of the Boss Mining joint venture to 49%, reducing ENRC's stake to 51%. The operations of Boss Mining were suspended in 2019.

Operations

The joint venture was to extract cobalt from Mukondo, reopen the Kakanda concentrator and control the

Luita The Luita plant will be the largest copper and cobalt processing plant in Africa, and the largest cobalt facility in the world. It is being built in modules by the Central African Mining and Exploration Company (CAMEC) in Katanga Province, Democ ...

copper cobalt SX/EW facility. In February 2008 the two companies announced that the Mukondo Mountain operations had restarted. In July 2008 CAMEC said the Luita facility, due to be completed later that year, would be the largest of its kind in the world. The target was to produce 100,000 tonnes per year of copper cathode. In July 2009 CAMEC announced a long-term agreement under which CAMEC would deliver its entire annual production of cobalt in concentrate from Mukondo Mountain to Zhejiang Galico Cobalt & Nickel Materials of China.

References

{{reflist , refs= {{cite web , url=http://www.infomine.com/publications/docs/InternationalMining/Chadwick2008t.pdf , title=CAMEC - The Cobalt Champion , publisher=International Mining , date=July 2008 , accessdate=2011-11-18 {{cite web , url = http://www.laconscience.com/imprimer.php?id_article=3783 , archive-url = https://archive.today/20070704095105/http://www.laconscience.com/imprimer.php?id_article=3783 , url-status = dead , archive-date = 4 July 2007 , title = Pillage des ressources minières de la RDC : les dessous de cartes de la compagnie KMC , language = French , date = 9 March 2006 , work = The Conscience , accessdate = 2011-11-14 {{cite web , url=http://www.miningmx.com/news/archive/670097.htm , title=CAMEC enters new JV to house DRC assets , author=Allan Seccombe , date=7 November 2007 , work=MiningMX , accessdate=2011-11-14 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120404015707/http://www.miningmx.com/news/archive/670097.htm , archive-date=4 April 2012 , url-status=dead {{cite web , url = http://www.mineweb.net/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page36?oid=19037&sn=Detail , title = Nikanor’s DRC mining contract quandary , author = Barry Sergeant , date = 3 April 2007 , accessdate = 2011-11-16 , url-status = dead , archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20111121003528/http://www.mineweb.net/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page36?oid=19037&sn=Detail , archivedate = 21 November 2011 {{cite journal , url = http://www.un.int/drcongo/mining.htm , publisher = United Nations , journal = Mining Newsletter , title = Copper/cobalt bull elephants square up in the DRC , author = Barry Sergeant , date = 6 May 2007 , accessdate = 2011-11-14 , url-status = dead , archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20111102155644/http://www.un.int/drcongo/mining.htm , archivedate = 2 November 2011 {{cite web , url=http://www.miningweekly.com/article/camec-prairie-restart-operations-at-drc-mine-2008-02-07 , title=Camec, Prairie restart operations at DRC mine , author=Christy van der Merwe , date=7 February 2008 , work=Mining weekly , accessdate=2011-11-15 Copper mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo