DRC artisanal cobalt ‘vital’ to market balance: DRC Mining Week

摘要

Artisanal supplies from the Democratic Republic of Congo are vital to keep the cobalt market balanced, but have become harder to track and audit due to a higher incidence of local processing, participants in an introductory webinar to DRC Mining Week said June 9. “Since 2016, most artisanal ore is blended and processed into cobalt hydroxide in the DRC, making it harder to track and audit supply chains,” said George Heppel, senior analyst, CRU Group, on the webinar organized by DRC Mining Week together with Mining Review Africa. This contrasts to the situation before that date, when artisanally mined (ASM) cobalt was traditionally shipped directly to China in the form of concentrates, making it easy to trace, according to the analyst.