Katanga Mining

Last updated
Katanga Mining Limited
TSX: KAT
Industry mining
Founded1996 [1]
DefunctJune 2020
Fatemerged into Glencore
Number of employees
6,400 [2]
Website www.katangamining.com

Katanga Mining Ltd was a mining company operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with its headquarters in Canada. Katanga Mining operated a major mine complex in the Congo's Katanga Province, producing refined copper and cobalt. It claimed to have the "potential of becoming Africa's largest copper producer and the world's largest cobalt producer." [3]

Contents

Katanga Mining formed two joint-venture projects with state-owned Gécamines to develop the mining complex: Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) and DRC Copper and Cobalt Project (DCP).

Assets and ownership

The company was first listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in August 1997. [4]

In January 2008 Katanga Mining acquired Nikanor plc for $452m. [1] [3]

Katanga Mining was purchased by Glencore in 2020 and it was de-listed from the Toronto Stock Exchange. [5] [6]

DRC Copper and Cobalt Project

DRC Copper and Cobalt Project (DCP) began mining Tilwezembe, an open-pit copper and cobalt mine, in 2007. [7] In November 2008, Katanga Mining said they had temporarily suspended mining at Tilwezembe and ore processing at the Luilu refinery in Kolwezi due to the depressed price of cobalt. [8]

Kamoto Copper Company

Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) owns a large mining complex near Kolwezi that includes Kamoto mine, Mashamba East, KTE underground mine, Etang South underground mine, KOV mine, and the T17 mine. Ore from these mines is processed at the Kamoto concentrator and the Luilu metallurgical plant. [9] [10] [11] As of 2010 the open pit Kananga Mine was also the property of KCC. The mine was not active. [12]

The Dima mines, consisting of Mashamba East, Mashamba West and Dikuluwe mine were originally owned by the state-owned Gécamines before majority rights were sold to Katanga Mining and Nikanor in the early 2000s. [13] Following the merger with Nikanor in 2008, Katanga sold Dikuluwe and Mashamba West to Gécamines for $825 million. [14] [13] In February 2017 Glencore purchased nearly all of Gecamines interests in Katanga and the larger Mutanda mine. The smaller Katanga mine is remaining closed during 2015-2017 while new processing facilities are constructed. Prior to 2015 Katanga produced 113,000 tonnes/yr of copper while Mutanda continues to produce over 210,000 tonnes/yr

Incidents

February 2015, an overturned truck spilled 60 cubic metres of sulphuric acid. [15]

In January 2018, a dike broke at Kamoto mine, causing a sodium hydrosulphide spill that damaged crops and killed fish. Four hundred and sixty households were affected. Soil contamination had not been cleaned up later in 2018. [15]

Corruption allegations

The release of the Paradise Papers in 2017 revealed details of the 2008-2009 negotiations between Katanga and the congolese state owned Gécamines. Due to an impasse in negotiations, they called in the businessmen Dan Gertler to act as a mediator. Along with an indirect personal stake in the Katanga project, Gertler had a close personal relationship with the Congolese president's top advisor Augustin Katumba Mwanke, and allegedly passed along millions in bribes on behalf of Och Ziff Capital Management. [16] [17]

Canada required a $20 million fine from the company in 2019 due to unclear relationship with the Congolese authorities. [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gécamines</span> Congolese commodity and mining company

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 1966 and a successor to the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga. Gecamines is engaged in the exploration, research, exploitation and production of mineral deposits including copper and cobalt.

Glencore plc is a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas head office is in London and its registered office is in Saint Helier, Jersey. The current company was created through a merger of Glencore with Xstrata on 2 May 2013. As of 2015, it ranked tenth in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Glencore International was ranked as the 484th-largest public company in the world. As of July 2022, it is the world's largest commodity trader.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anvil Mining</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musonoi Mine</span> Mine near Kolwezi, DRC

The Musonoi mine is a set of open-cut pits near Kolwezi from which copper and other metals have been extracted since the 1940s. The mining complex is located in the Lualaba Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kolwezi is about 320 kilometres (200 mi) northwest from Lubumbashi, the provincial capital.

The Kolwezi tailings project also known as the Roan Tailings Reclamation is a project in the Kolwezi mining area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to recover copper from the tailings, or processed ore, from mining in the region since the 1950s. The project was developed by the Canadian mining companies Adastra Minerals and then First Quantum Minerals between 2004 and 2009, when the DRC government revoked First Quantum's license. The project is currently majority owned by the Eurasian Resources Group.

Tilwezembe is an open-pit copper and cobalt mine in Lualaba Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo owned by Katanga Mining, a subsidiary of Glencore. Officially, Glencore has shuttered the mine, but the site is still being used by artisinal miners.

Mashamba East is an open pit copper mine near to Kolwezi in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. As of 2014, the mine was not currently not being actively worked.

The Kamoto Mine is an underground copper and cobalt mine to the west of Musonoi in the former Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. As of 2022, the site is the largest active cobalt mine in the world. The mine includes the Luilu metallurgical plant, which accepts ore from KOV mine and Mashamba East mine. The plant has polluted the Luilu River, and tailings also pollute the region with wind-blown dust. The Kolwezi Tailings Project is an attempt to recover additional metal from these tailings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dikuluwe Mine</span>

The Dikuluwe Mine is a copper and cobalt mine near to Kolwezi in Lualaba Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Dikuluwe is the westernmost of the Dima Pit group, with Mashamba West and Mashamba East. The quarry was opened in 1975 and was planned to be connected to the nearby Mashamba West pit. The combined Dikuluwe and Mashamba West deposits are now run by La Sino-Congolaise des Mines SA (Sicomines), a joint venture majority owned by a Chinese consortium, with Gécamines holding a minority stake.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central African Mining and Exploration Company</span>

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The Kananga Mine is an open pit copper mine near Kolwezi in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is currently officially inactive.

The Mutanda Mine is an open-pit copper and cobalt mine in the Lualaba Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It is the largest cobalt mine in the world. Accidents and spills at the mine have killed workers and polluted nearby rivers and fields. An NGO that has documented impacts of the mine concluded that spills have threatened community members' right to food.

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The following lists events that happened during 2008 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The KOV mine is a large, active open pit copper and cobalt mine near Kolwezi in Lualaba Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The site contains some of the highest grade copper ore of any mine in the world. The mine is also one of the world's largest Cobalt producers.

References

  1. 1 2 Katanga Mining, History Archived 2011-11-10 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ Glencore, Katanga Mining Archived 2011-06-07 at the Wayback Machine
  3. 1 2 "History". Katanga Mining. Archived from the original on 2011-11-10. Retrieved 2011-11-16.
  4. ↑ Reid, Helen; Shabalala, Zandi (2020-04-22). "Glencore's Congo unit Katanga Mining to go private, warns of possible COVID-19 impact". U.S. Retrieved 2022-05-29.
  5. ↑ "Glencore to take Toronto-listed Katanga Mining private at 100% premium". Financial Post. April 22, 2020.
  6. ↑ "Katanga Mining Completes Amalgamation Transaction". Cision . 2020-06-03. Retrieved 2022-08-04.
  7. ↑ "An Independent Technical Report on the Material Assets of Katanga Mining Limited..." (PDF). SRK Consulting. 17 March 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 May 2012. Retrieved 2011-11-06.
  8. ↑ "Kolwezi Concentrator Update" (PDF). Katanga Mining. November 21, 2008. Retrieved 2011-11-06.
  9. ↑ "Kamoto Mine, Lualaba, Democratic Republic of Congo" . Retrieved 2023-01-16.
  10. ↑ Katanga Mining, Company profile Archived 2012-05-19 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ↑ KATANGA MINING LIMITED. Management’s Discussion and Analysis For the three months and years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015. minedocs.com. Retrieved 2024-02-08
  12. ↑ Tim Henderson (31 March 2010). "A Technical Report on the Material Assets of Katanga Mining Limited Katanga Province, DRC" (PDF). Katanga Mining. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 April 2012. Retrieved 2011-11-17.
  13. 1 2 Barry Sergeant (29 Jan 2008). "Katanga Mining's DRC/China copper/cobalt conundrum". MineWeb. Archived from the original on 2013-01-03. Retrieved 2011-11-10.
  14. ↑ Liezel Hill (8 February 2008). "Katanga agrees to sell DRC deposits to govt for $825m". Mining Weekly. Retrieved 2011-11-10.
  15. 1 2 "Glencore in the DR Congo: incomplete due diligence" (PDF). Bread for All Lenten Fund. 2018.
  16. ↑ Doherty, Ben (2017-11-05). "The inside story of Glencore's hidden dealings in DRC". the Guardian. Retrieved 2021-12-07.
  17. ↑ Patterson, Scott; O’Brien, Rebecca Davis (2018-07-05). "U.S. Probes Ties Between Glencore, Diamond Merchant Under Sanction" . WSJ. Retrieved 2021-12-07.
  18. ↑ Lambert, Fred (15 January 2020). "Tesla is looking to secure controversial cobalt from Glencore to produce batteries". Electrek.
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