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says","drc-to-push-ahead-with-government-control-of-small-scale-mining-presidential-advisor-says","article/drc-to-push-ahead-with-government-control-of-small-scale-mining-presidential-advisor-says",{"_uid":547,"date":548,"tags":549,"editor":553,"content":563,"excerpt":668,"featured":51,"reporter":669,"_editable":673,"component":674,"seo_title":543,"categories":675,"visibility":681,"author_company":49,"featured_image":682,"seo_description":668,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":687,"formattedArticleDate":688},"be542179-8401-4e6c-95db-1709a43d40a9","2022-05-18 00:00",[550],{"slug":551,"name":552},"drc","DRC",[554],{"slug":555,"name":556,"content":557},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":558,"image":559,"bio":561,"linkedin":562},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":560},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":564,"content":565},"doc",[566,573,578,583,588,593,608,613,618,623,630,635,648,653,658,663],{"type":567,"attrs":568,"content":569},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[570],{"text":571,"type":572},"The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will push ahead with government plans to control all of the cobalt produced by small-scale miners, a presidential adviser said. ","text",{"type":567,"attrs":574,"content":575},{"textAlign":49},[576],{"text":577,"type":572},"The country is looking for more foreign companies to agree to purchase the metal, which will be sold via the state-controlled Entreprise Generale du Cobalt (EGC), Vidiye Tshimanga Tshipanda, president Felix Tshikidei’s special adviser on Strategic Matters, told Benchmark. ",{"type":567,"attrs":579,"content":580},{"textAlign":49},[581],{"text":582,"type":572},"The comments come a week after the DRC’s Mining Minister Antoinette N’Samba Kalambayi said she is looking to cancel a 2019 presidential decree that gave EGC the legal right to purchase all the cobalt dug up by thousands of artisanal miners in the country and re-sell it. ",{"type":567,"attrs":584,"content":585},{"textAlign":49},[586],{"text":587,"type":572},"But Vidiye Tshimanga told the Cobalt Institute conference in Zurich this week that “whether EGC is a monopoly or not should not be an impediment to progress.” ",{"type":567,"attrs":589,"content":590},{"textAlign":49},[591],{"text":592,"type":572},"“What matters is that all actors are held to account,” he said. ",{"type":567,"attrs":594,"content":595},{"textAlign":49},[596,598,606],{"text":597,"type":572},"The DRC accounts for around ",{"text":599,"type":572,"marks":600},"70% of the world’s supply of cobalt",[601],{"type":602,"attrs":603},"link",{"href":604,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":605},"https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/cobalt-prices-hit-three-year-high-as-ev-growth-boosts-demand","url",{"text":607,"type":572}," as assessed by Benchmark’s Cobalt Forecast, yet around 10% or more comes from small-scale artisanal miners, who dig for the metal by hand often without any safety equipment. Most of the cobalt is then bought by individual buying houses, many of them Chinese. ",{"type":567,"attrs":609,"content":610},{"textAlign":49},[611],{"text":612,"type":572},"Congolese officials have complained that miners are cheated by buyers and paid less than the market price. EGC was launched to rectify this by purchasing all of the cobalt itself.",{"type":567,"attrs":614,"content":615},{"textAlign":49},[616],{"text":617,"type":572},"Vidiye Tshimanga said individual miners would be paid a fair price for their cobalt by EGC. ",{"type":567,"attrs":619,"content":620},{"textAlign":49},[621],{"text":622,"type":572},"“It is unacceptable that international buyers cheat Congolese and the country out of revenues,” he said.",{"type":624,"attrs":625,"content":627},"heading",{"level":626,"textAlign":49},4,[628],{"text":629,"type":572},"A just transition",{"type":567,"attrs":631,"content":632},{"textAlign":49},[633],{"text":634,"type":572},"The global energy transition would not be a fair and “just transition” without the improvement of the lives of artisanal cobalt miners, he said. ",{"type":567,"attrs":636,"content":637},{"textAlign":49},[638,640,646],{"text":639,"type":572},"In 2020 Swiss commodity trader ",{"text":641,"type":572,"marks":642},"Trafigura agreed to buy cobalt from EGC",[643],{"type":602,"attrs":644},{"href":645,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":605},"https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/trafigura-and-drc-agree-deal-in-push-to-formalise-artisanal-cobalt-mining",{"text":647,"type":572}," and help formalise artisanal mining sites, but Vidiye Tshimanga said the company would not be the only international buyer.  ",{"type":567,"attrs":649,"content":650},{"textAlign":49},[651],{"text":652,"type":572},"“Trafigura will not have a monopoly,” over the cobalt, he told Benchmark at the Cobalt Institute conference. ",{"type":567,"attrs":654,"content":655},{"textAlign":49},[656],{"text":657,"type":572},"The EGC plans to formalise current artisanal mining sites, in order to make them safer and eliminate the risk of child labour. The sites will be monitored by local committees to a set of EGC-created standards with the help of the NGO Pact. The cobalt will then be sent to a central buying centre at Musompo outside of Kolwezi. ",{"type":567,"attrs":659,"content":660},{"textAlign":49},[661],{"text":662,"type":572},"Tshimanga said the ore would be weighed and tagged with a QR code, allowing the cobalt to be tracked. ",{"type":567,"attrs":664,"content":665},{"textAlign":49},[666],{"text":667,"type":572},"The cobalt will also be certified according to sustainability standards set by Germany’s DMT Mining Consulting & Engineering, according to Eddy Kioni, chief executive of the Sud South Group, which is helping with the process.","The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will push ahead with government plans to control all of the cobalt produced by small-scale miners, a presidential adviser said. The country is looking for more foreign companies to agree to purchase the metal, which will be sold via the state-controlled Entreprise Generale du Cobalt (EGC), Vidiye Tshimanga Tshipanda, […]",[670],{"slug":555,"name":556,"content":671},{"job_title":558,"image":672,"bio":561,"linkedin":562},{"filename":560},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"be542179-8401-4e6c-95db-1709a43d40a9\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[676,678],{"slug":677,"name":115},"cobalt",{"slug":679,"name":680},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals","private",{"id":49,"alt":683,"name":683,"focus":683,"title":683,"source":683,"filename":684,"copyright":683,"fieldtype":685,"meta_data":686,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/5accba2b74/bm-artisinal-cobalt.jpg","asset",{"alt":683,"title":683,"source":683,"copyright":683},"May 18, 2022","18th May 2022",[],[],1784294266350]