Okay, here's the plan. We're going to need a truck.
From Bloomberg via Mining.com, February 27:
A growing pile of copper and cobalt worth about $1.5 billion is stranded in the Democratic Republic of Congo, caught up in a standoff over the future of one of the world’s biggest battery-metal mines.
The huge stash of metal is owned by China’s CMOC Group Ltd, which is locked in a dispute with its Congolese state-owned partner over royalty payments. While its exports were blocked in mid-July, CMOC’s Tenke Fungurume mine has kept running at close to full capacity, simply stockpiling the extra metal until it can resume shipments, according to people familiar with the matter.
The logjam is a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities in electric-vehicle supply chains, which rely heavily on a small clutch of mines in a handful of countries — in the case of cobalt, Congo is by far the largest supplier. Battery metal prices have become increasingly volatile as producers struggle to match output to demand, creating headaches for automakers on the upswings, and miners on the way down. The Tenke Fungurume stockpile raises the threat of more sharp swings to come.
By now, there are about 120,000 tons of copper and around 12,500 tons of cobalt stuck waiting to leave the country, according to people familiar with the matter and Bloomberg calculations. The copper accounts for the bulk of the value, at about $1.1 billion at spot prices, but it only represents about 7% of total global monthly production, and is unlikely to affect international prices when it does hit the market.
For cobalt, however, the implications could be seismic....
....MUCH MORE
There was a time, during the Great Cobalt Run of 2016 that we were very interested in the Tenke Fungurume:
September 2016Lundin Mining Granted Second Extension To Bid For Giant DR Congo Cobalt/Copper Mine
Is Tesla going to stick with current battery technology and use cobalt or will one of the competing approaches prove so superior that the value of Tenke Fungurume falls 60%.
Follow one road and all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
No pressure.
And no idea why Churchill is showing up in the intro to a mining story.
It may be as simple as always thinking it would be nice to walk into the Monday morning meeting and, just once, have someone acknowledge last week's performance with "This was their finest hour".
Just once.
Sept. 8, 2016
DR
Congo’s State Mining Company Submitted An Offer to Buy Freeport
McMoRan's Stake In Tenke Fungurume Copper, Cobalt Mine (FCX; LUN.to)
May 20, 2016
Why the CIA Reads The Financial Times (and you should too) Tesla and Cobalt
May 9, 2016
"Freeport Sinks On Sale of Africa Copper Mine To Chinese" (FCX; LUN.TO)
And more recently:
March 2018
"A Little-Known Cobalt Miner Wants to Out-Produce Everyone Except Glencore"
November 2021
NYT: "How Hunter Biden’s Firm Helped Secure Cobalt for the Chinese"
July 2022
Copper and Cobalt: "CMOC’s Congo mine suspends copper and cobalt exports"
On the LME prices are rolling over:
source: tradingeconomics.com
I wonder if the Chinese will ask Biden the Younger for their money back.
