The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned \u200cexports of copper concentrate and cobalt concentrate as it escalates efforts to force domestic processing and retain more value from its mineral resources, a government order shows.<\/p>\n
After Reuters reported the ban, benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose by as much as 1.8% \u200bto $14,369.50 a metric ton, the highest since January 29 when the metal hit an all-time peak of $14,527.50. It was \u200btrading at $14,300 as of 0930 GMT.<\/p>\n
Congo is seeking to leverage its position as the world’s largest cobalt \u2060supplier and a major source of other energy-transition minerals, including copper, to build domestic processing capacity and retain a greater share \u200bof the wealth flowing from its mines.<\/p>\n
The June 29 order, signed by Mines Minister Louis Kabamba Watum, Foreign Trade Minister Julien Paluku \u200bKahongya and Economy Minister Daniel Mukoko Samba, says “the export of copper and cobalt concentrates is prohibited”.<\/p>\n
The ban takes effect immediately, although one-year export waivers may be granted under strategic circumstances, the order said, without explaining further.<\/p>\n
It also introduced a tax regime with a three-month transition period for economically significant mining \u200bby-products.<\/p>\n
CONGO PUSHES FOR LOCAL PROCESSING<\/strong><\/p>\n The ban was motivated by “the need to encourage mining operators to market or export commercial mineral products \u200bwith high added value,” the order said.<\/p>\n Congo has imposed bans on copper and cobalt concentrate exports in 2013, 2019 and 2023, while granting waivers \u200cwhere \u2060domestic smelting capacity was insufficient.<\/p>\n The latest order repeals the 2023 order and its exemptions, and replaces it with a broader framework governing mineral exports and the taxation of economically significant mining by-products.<\/p>\n Congo mostly exports copper in the form of refined metal. It exported 696,725 tons of copper cathodes in the first quarter of 2026, compared with 53,926 tons of copper concentrates containing 18,863 tons of copper \u200bmetal, according to official data.<\/p>\n It \u200balso shipped 51,940 tons of \u2060cobalt hydroxides containing 17,054 tons of cobalt metal over the same period.<\/p>\n Christian-Geraud Neema, a mining analyst at non-profit organisation the China-Global South Project, said the latest ban was unlikely to have a \u200bsevere impact on most operators as the bulk of Congo’s copper and cobalt is already refined \u200bdomestically.<\/p>\n He said the \u2060most affected could be the Kamoa-Kakula venture \u2013 owned by Ivanhoe Mines, China’s Zijin Mining\u00a0and the Congolese government \u2013 as it still exports some concentrate under exemptions. Ivanhoe and Zijin did not immediately respond to a request for comment and neither did the Congolese chamber of \u2060mines.<\/p>\n The new \u200btax regime covers a wide range of minerals and says the tax on \u200bmining by-products applies to trace and ultra-trace minerals recovered during refining using a 55% valuation coefficient, with royalties charged alongside those on the main mineral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned \u200cexports of copper concentrate and cobalt concentrate as it escalates efforts to force domestic processing and retain more value from its mineral resources, a government order shows. After Reuters reported the ban, benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose by as much as 1.8% \u200bto $14,369.50 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,3028],"tags":[5376,2388,3016],"class_list":["post-21693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-mining","tag-cobalt-concentrates","tag-copper","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21694,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693\/revisions\/21694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}