Liu Jianfeng

CMOC’s new chair played it diplomatically when at the FT Metals & Mining Summit in October he was asked what he made of the Congo’s newly implemented quota on cobalt exports. Each nation has a right to set its own rules, Liu Jianfeng replied. “We will follow the rules.” In truth, CMOC is opposed to the quota, imposed to manage wild swings in the price of the battery mineral. What it means for the China firm, the largest cobalt player globally, is that 2024’s 114,000 tons of cobalt exports will shrink heavily this year. That’s because it shares only a portion (albeit the largest) of the total 94,000t of exports now permitted.

It’s perhaps for this reason the company is set on buying production elsewhere, especially in copper (cobalt is produced as a by-product) and gold, which Liu said last year still had “room to grow”. CMOC bought Lumina Gold, a Canadian company operating in Ecuador, for C$581m. Other South American targets are being sought, as well as African assets. Returning to the cobalt question, however, there is a risk cobalt-nickel-manganese batteries become less competitive than lithium-ion-phosphate rivals, which are already beginning to close the performance gap. CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.), CMOC’s 25% shareholder, is a lithium miner in its own right so it may view the choice agnostically.

Liu says the quota is unlikely to have that much impact, however. And so it would seem. CMOC announced in October it would spend $1.08bn expanding its 71.25%-owned KFM copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, adding 100,000t of output a year. Construction is due to start in 2027.