China-Africa Critical Minerals Update: Clean Up in Zambia, Disputes in the DR Congo
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Hello and welcome to another edition of the China in Africa podcast, a proud member of the Seneca Podcast Network. I'm Eric Olander, and this week I'm joined by our favorite editors following the critical minerals industry, CGSP's Africa editor, Giro Nima, and our critical minerals editor, Obert Bore, joining us from Harare, Zimbabwe. And Giro, today you are not the only one joining us from a beautiful island. You're in Mauritius.

Today I'm joining you from the beautiful island of Hawaii in Waikiki. So two of us on beautiful islands this week. A very good morning to both of you. Good morning. Good evening to you, Eric. Yes, it's the end of the day here, the beginning of the day for you guys. I've been looking forward to speaking with both of you.

All week, because you guys have been on the road in Zambia, in Lusaka, both of you attended this fascinating mining conference, and I thought it would be a good chance for us to start today's show telling us a little bit about what are some of the themes that people are talking about at these mining conferences today.

Especially focusing on, again, the China angle, because there's so much news that we're going to cover today. And I imagine at the conference in Osaka, you know, these topics bubbled up. So, Giro, why don't you give us a head start on everything in terms of what were some of the key themes that you guys discussed at this conference in Osaka?

Of course, you cannot be talking about critical minerals or the way we call it in Africa, green mineral value chain in Africa without talking about China. China being the main stakeholders in the supply chain of critical minerals, China being present on the upstream when it comes to mining operation in many African countries. So you cannot be talking about that topic without ever at some point dropping the name of China, especially when you talk about the geopolitical context of it.

And I was sitting on a panel talking about geopolitics, and we've mentioned China, the role of China, the role of how the U.S.-China tension is going to play out on the ground, how China is going to adapt to that environment, and how African countries should, maybe should or should not be taking side and how they should be navigating the geopolitical competition. But overall, it was really interesting because we've mentioned that with Obert, because we did an exchange with Obert like yesterday, it was published yesterday, where we talked about the first day, summarized the first day of the conference.

Overall, there was a positive view about China. China was perceived as that one country from the global south that was able to escape the trap of the international system because there was a moment to mention that there is a structural barrier that is stopping countries from the global south to be able to.

get out of the position where they've been put into. And when we look into China, China was that country that was able to leave that space. And that China can be an example, can be a partner for many African countries, especially regarding to critical minerals, maybe signing what someone has coined the partnership of the century, where we get China coming, building supply chain on the African continent with

in producing African countries and how we can make that up and how we can really use that leverage to also engage with other partners. So yes, China was really painted from a very positive perspective, positive light, which I was surprised about. But I didn't make a mention while I was sitting on the panel saying that since we're talking about geopolitics, we have to be real here. We don't have to be naive and talk about wishful thinking. We cannot be talking about geopolitics and talking about China or any other country without answering the question why China would do that here in Africa.

Why China would build that in Africa, given the context, given what every issue that we've mentioned here, the structural imbalance, the lack of market, the lack of energy and everything. Why China would do that here? If we don't answer that question, we won't be able to really talk about geopolitics from the really serious perspective. So that was a few things I wanted to put out there about the China angle during that conference. So, Obert, Giro brought up this question of why would China build in Africa in the critical mining sector.

value chain, what did people say? That's a very important question that Jerome made. And maybe before I answer that question, I think he also made something that was very controversial, which a lot of people were saying, no, we can't be saying this debate. So it was the whole thing about

You know, this critical debate not being an African debate, but being a debate for those countries that have significant resources that do control at least or are producers of, you know, in quantities and large volumes, which, you know, ruffled some feathers in the room. There were policymakers from Zambia, DRC, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and even the southern parliament was represented. Let me just understand, what was sensitive? I didn't quite get what ruffled their feathers in particular. Yeah.

What Rafa was afraid of was that we can't be talking about geopolitics and excluding Africa and just focus only on those countries that are producers of critical minerals. You mentioned, obviously, Zimbabwe, DRC, Zambia and Guinea. Mozambique, Guinea. And South Africa.

So he said, those are the countries that should at least have a seat at the table when you're talking about geopolitical issues around critical minerals, because they do control at least what we see in Indonesia controlling nickel. The same applies with these countries.

But the entire 50 other, you know, more than 30 countries in Africa would not have a seat at the table when you talk of geopolitical around crude coal minerals. Let's be clarifying. Let's mostly clarify that point because people tend to believe that I'm discounting the small countries. My point was to say this. If you are not a global producer of those minerals, you have no place of looking at those minerals from a geopolitical perspective.

and putting yourself in the shoe of a geopolitical competition. Because you're going to be steamrolled in a debate that's really not yours to begin with. You're going to be considering strategies and taking options that are really not for you to take to begin with.

If we talk about geopolitics, countries that, if they take an action, they can suspend the market, they can hit the market. Those countries really can talk and look into critical minerals from a geopolitical perspective. And because there was that trend where we were talking about geopolitics as it was in

a whole continent debate that, or the whole, I'm sorry, guys, that's not the case. If we talk about geopolitics alone and we have to be, it's not about what we can do, what we wish to do. No, it's about what asset do I have? What leverage do I have to be able to be that actors? And the leverage, it's about how much do you produce? If you are a 0.01% producer of, I don't know, lithium in the world,

Man, I mean, come on. Why would you want to talk about lithium-ion message on the geopolitical perspective when it comes to Latin Africa? And that's the thing where people kind of feel that... But when you are Guinea and bauxite, then you have some leverage. Exactly. When you are Guinea and bauxite, yes, you have something leverage to say. Yeah, but on DRC and cobalt, this is what we wrote about last year, Giro, or maybe a year and a half ago, when Felix Chessikedi, the president, went to China...

and did not use that leverage. I mean, literally, you know, Congo is one of the only countries in Africa that has that incredible leverage with China and they don't use it. So if you want to seat at the table, Obert, I think the point is that, and this is my point, is that you got to be prepared to play the card. Interestingly, in Guinea, they've played that card. Remember, they have shut down the mines. They have told the foreign investors, you're not going to be able to mine here unless you do X, Y, and Z. And guess what? It worked.

So I think the point is, are you... They got Rio Tinto and China Alcoa to work together in the Simandu project. They forced them in a collective approach to do Simandu because they say, I have it. I'm this largest untapped iron ore reserve in the world. If you want to work with me, those are my conditions. That was the only point I was making. And people were like, no, you wanted to exclude... I said, no, I said, come on. We talk about geopolitics here. Talk geopolitics power, leverage. That's it.

Giro, I'm just glad you said it and I didn't. Go on, Obert, because they would have had me for dinner if I said it. Go ahead, Obert. Let me say that, no, of course, I agree with your point. Of course, a lot of people think, oh, maybe policymakers are a bit of naive people.

And they have this comradeship and saying we can do things together. Whereas when you look at it individually, countries obviously have their own national interest. And so the whole debate around, you know, creating regional value chains, which obviously makes a lot of sense because you can provide a resource or something that another country doesn't have. And as a region, you know, you become a powerhouse.

But at the end of the day, we nod and realize that a lot of countries, you know, they are pushing nationalistic agenda, which obviously reduces their political or at least influence at a global level. So I think a lot of people are saying, if we do this together,

As a continent or as a region within SADC, at least it adds more voice, which I think that was the argument that some were trying to make. I know, but let's push back on this a little bit. Everybody talks about pan-Africanism. The continent has to come together to work to negotiate better deals with China and others, and then even on a regional basis.

give me a precedent of when SADC, the Southern Africa Development Community, the East Africa Community, ECOWAS in West Africa have effectively done that. And it seems like that is a big ask to get these countries to align their mineral strategy at such a level because they're so accustomed to working on the bilateral level and not coordinating. So is this something that is actually feasible or is this just more happy talk that is not backed by a lot of action? In

In the region, in Southern Africa, the answer is no, Eric. I think we haven't seen that happening, even though, you know, SADC has this industrialization and regional strategy on, you know, creating value chains. So already, I think in 2015, SADC as a state approved some industrial development policy for the region. Zimbabwe and South Africa were, you know, talking about

you know, creating this, you know, platinum PGM value chain. And as you probably know, Zimbabwe and South Africa, you know, are huge producers of platinum. And some of the largest platinum mines in Zimbabwe are controlled by South African companies, are the likes of Anglo, Sibenya, etc.,

And when you talk to them and say, how do we better leverage and create that value chain for production of semiconductors or PGM products? South Africa resists. They do not want to set up processing facilities in Zimbabwe. And they say, you do not have the facilities in terms of the technology, the water, the resources, etc., and energy.

It's better for us to do it in Rustenburg in South Africa where we have those facilities. So even at a bilateral level, you still see friction among countries that do trade a lot together. For example, this Zimbabwe in South Africa.

Gero, very quickly, before we move on to another topic, let me just get your take on this leverage question and kind of summing up what we've been talking about. Talking about South Africa that Obert brought up, lots of antagonism and real just, you know, fuming hate coming from the United States towards South Africa. The South Africans are starting to kind of talk about this idea of like, well,

Great. If you don't want to do business with us, we don't want to do business with you, and we're going to cut off some of the mineral supplies. When we think about the U.S.-China competition, in particular the U.S.-South Africa relationship, do you think these critical minerals will start to become pawns in the greater competition, particularly with the U.S.?

No, definitely, yes. Definitely, we should be expecting those minerals starting to become pawns on the chessboard. We should be expecting countries starting to leverage that. And it's not even the first time. Naledi Pandor in 2023 kind of alluded to that. She was like, let me remind you, 17 of the EPGM minerals that the U.S. automobile industry needs depend, come from South Africa. So we should be expecting those kind of leverage to start being put on the table.

And I think it was long overdue because South Africa, it's not a big country. It's not also a small country. It's a country that's just big enough to be able to also have a certain, no, not only to have a leverage to lead a group of country, but also to be able to say, I won't be bullied by you. I won't be bullied by you telling me how do I do my friend policy and all. And I'm really,

really quite glad that they start to really start talking about that, thinking about that, because that is important in a way to engage with global countries, especially in this area of global competition, global geopolitical competition. You need to be able to say, you know what, I'm going to stand up to bullies.

And especially when you do have leverage. And South Africa does not lack leverage. It has the ability to maneuver and to also find different partners that can move along, especially in the context where you have now new stakeholders coming from the Gulf country wanting to be able to invest in different mining projects around Africa. Yes, definitely they have an option to do that as well. Very quickly, do you expect that South Africa will do that? Do you think they'll cut off the supply chains to the United States?

No, I don't think they will do that. I think they will threaten to do that. They will try to do that. But when you look at how American companies are really present and also central to South Africa economy, I don't think they will go so far. They go so far than that. But they still can expect when you have U.S. courts deciding that Donald Trump tariffs are illegal, they cannot put up tariffs, they can still be able to also say, let's wait, let's see how we're going to play those cards to be able when and how we can play our leverage. But I'm not expecting a full cutoff to the U.S. market.

Well,

We'll be careful on the court things. So here in Hawaii, in my morning session at the conference I was attending, the court struck down the tariffs, but by the afternoon session, another court brought them back again. So very hard to follow what's going on. Let's move on very quickly now. We're going to stay also in Zambia. There's been some news going back to February, and regular listeners and viewers of the show will remember the discussions that we've been having about this huge sino metal acid spill in the Kafue River. Back in February, a

tailings dam at a Chinese-owned copper mine that was owned by Sinometals, leached into or burst, actually, 50 million liters of what they're calling acidic effluent into the Kafue River. And that is one of Zambia's largest rivers. Now, the news started coming out in March about this, and it generated a

a lot of headlines. We got these headlines like, a river died overnight in Zambia after an acidic waste spill at a Chinese-owned mine. A bit of exaggeration, though. Okay, that's why I read the headline. I want to get your take on that. But it also became a subject of the kind of US narrative about China in Africa,

AFRICOM commander Michael Langley talked about it in his testimony to Congress. Now, the last time that we checked on this story, that was about a month and a half ago, the company was tasked with hiring a South African firm to come in and do an assessment.

That's apparently now done and the company's now embarking on a cleanup process and starting to pay farmers restitution for the damaged land. Let's take a listen and get an update now from Zambia's national broadcaster, ZNBC, for their take on where we are now. Affected farmers will be paid for their crops, livestock and damaged land. Corporate Minister Elisha Matambo says the farmers will further be paid an extra amount.

for the season that they will not use the land because of the presence of acidic content. The two companies are also expected to rehabilitate the affected soils. The report is saying cyanometals and longzine, they will have to continue working on neutralizing the acid in these fields by putting the chemicals such as limes,

so that the other season our farmers will be able to use this field. Speaking at the same event, Mines Minister Poka Bufuese said a team of ministers who soon meet saw as to allow the farmers start getting their money. Convening a meeting earliest possible time, most likely Monday next week, we sit, go through, approve and then pay our people.

Okay, Obert. So it sounds like things are starting to move. Money is starting to flow. They have a plan to get farmers back onto the land after one year. They're going to put lime to try and mitigate some of the acid. You are in contact with Zambian environmental activists, and you've been following the story quite closely. What are people telling you?

I mean, this is a very interesting story that also came up during the conference we just attended with Jiro. There was an official from the Zambian Ministry of Mines who was, I think, I don't want to use antagonistic with this civil society organization that was also putting the ministry to the side.

But why was he critical? Give us a little bit of the background. It was more to do with the accuracy of about what's happening, you know, within the region in terms of the quantities of the effluent discharged and also the value of the land and the losses and the damages, which...

He really was just being critical to say civil society needs to be, you know, fact check your information before you start, you know, making accusations and that the government is not doing anything to address the issue.

That's besides the points. Yesterday, again, so there are a group of civil society organizations that met after the conference. So there was outside the conference to discuss this issue. And I touched base with these guys last night to find out what are some of the key things. So one of the things the minister of mine is telling us from that audio recording that you have just played, Eric, that they are going to compensate for.

the victims or the families that have lost. But one of the things that came out from that meeting last night is that they want to challenge the compensation. They think it's not fair, it's not adequate in terms of covering the actual cost and losses that they've suffered.

Gerard, why don't you pick up the story from where Obert was talking about? During the conference, the representative of the minister of mine was quite upset because he was talking about the framing of the topic. He was really quite advocating towards Sino-Metal Leach by saying that they've done a tremendous work. He said they keep on doing, we work with them, we are fixing the issue, we are every day on the ground trying to fix the issue. It's not like they're not doing anything. They're doing something on the ground and they're really pushing things moving forward and things need to be cleaned.

And reporting that nothing is done, it's not accurate and it's not correct. And that was one of the narratives that he was pushing against and he wanted people to really know that things are being done on the ground. And there was also one activist on the ground, a Chinese activist, who said that, you know, true, I went there, I've seen that myself, but I was also at the same time detained by the Chinese company, by the police on the ground. But the question is, I don't understand why Sino-Metallish does not want to talk with

media, doesn't want to receive civil society to show them the work they're doing. And this is the problem as well. So that's why the minister of mine was like, you know, the representative of the minister of mine during the conference was like, no, no, we cannot just be portraying that nothing is done and everything. But it also agreed that there is a need of a better communication from the Sino-Metalist to show at least what they've been doing.

Giraud, let me channel my inner Giraud-Nima and serve as the devil's advocate here, okay? What Giraud would tell me in another circumstance is that, you know, these ministers, they benefit, they profit, their interests are not always aligned with the people. So oftentimes the ministers are receiving payouts or money from maybe the mining companies.

And the reason why he's saying you don't get it is because, well, and Sinometals get it is because the ministers maybe, and I'm speculating here, I'm just playing devil's advocate here that, that they're in collusion with the mining companies. And do you get the sense that, I mean,

You talk about that in the DRC quite a bit, that local ministers and federal ministers oftentimes don't have the best interest of their people first. So do you believe the minister when he was saying this? Is this something legit or are there reasons to doubt him? At least when the representative of the minister of mine was doing the conference, you can always speculate onto the why he was saying that. You can also speculate that maybe he got something from there. Maybe he has certain interests. Maybe beyond just having certain interests is the fact that

When you're representing your government, you don't want your government to be portrayed under a bad light during a conference like this. You don't want to be portrayed as like, you know, we are not doing the work. We are doing the work and maybe it's not as much people would expect, but we are doing the work. That's why at the end, it was the need of like, if you're doing the work and...

Send someone, a third party, confirm that the work has been, it's also been done. There is just a need of a better communication. Let's talk. Come receive civil society. Receive the media. Show them what you're doing and we can move forward out of this debate. And this is what I think Obert was mentioning before, that with the sideline conference that happened yesterday, maybe more detail came out from the minister of mine. Obert, you're talking about it here. Yeah.

Yeah. So from the conversation that, you know, I had yesterday, the issue is really about the fairness and whether this compensation is adequate to offset this damage, which, I mean, according to them is quite significant. And, you know, I've also asked them if they've actually done independent scientific investigation to really ascertain the level of this pollution and the level of the

I imagine. Because, I mean, it's one thing challenging the compensation, but without the evidence, because they are also talking now of litigating in Zambia to challenge, you know, this case. So it's one of the things that is still lacking. They haven't done anything. What did they say when you asked that question? Did they give you any definitive answer about whether or not scientific evaluations were done?

So they say they have not done any scientific evaluation because they can't access the place. It's heavily protected by state security, which obviously is supporting the company. That's according to some of the guys that have gone to the ground in trying to access so that they could collect water samples from this polluted river.

This would be some of the problems. Two problems that you've mentioned would be really the key. First of all, will be the before pollution assessment in a sense where do we have a number on how much those land were producing for those local communities before pollution? Because without those numbers, we're going to find ourselves in a moment where there'll be a lot of speculation. People would say, you know, my land was producing me 50,000 US dollar a month of crops. And...

Against those words, you have the company saying, you're exaggerating. I'm going to pay you $2,000 a month for the loss. And the second point that you mentioned is about how deep runs the pollution on the ground. Do we have a clear assessment that it's going to be done within a year? Because we are talking about acidic spillover on land, on rivers as well. So have we really done a thorough assessment? And that should be like, did the government, besides the assessment that was done by Saino-Lidge, did the government have its own

own personal independent assessment by saying that, you know what, we checked your number, we verified, but our data is telling us that it's going to take at least three to five, six years to restore the land to the situation before the pollution. Those, I think, are the missing points in the debate to be able to assess whether or not the compensation is going to be fair and up to par the expectation that the way people were damaged during the spillover.

Ultimately, if they proceed to go to court, I think the decision will lie on this. These are the critical questions that they have to answer that because you can't speculate that your field was producing so much without the evidence, without having done an investigation. But also the scientific aspect, because when you're doing water pollution assessment, you have to check the level of pollution from the source, the point of discharge,

and upstream, and you also do the same downstream so that you're able to compare the result. And this is something that they haven't been able to do because they are saying they can't access the place. And then we were asking, so one of this Chinese lawyer who went to this place who accessed it and said,

She was then arrested. And she thinks also that this civil society, you know, actors in Zambia, they need quite a lot of support in terms of actually doing that investigation because a lot of them, I think it requires resources from that aspect of, you know, civil society not being able to have enough resources to actually conduct the, besides the security and problems to access, it's also about the resources of actually conducting the action.

Now, let me understand. So the security services are blocking access to the site. Now, maybe the government will say, listen, this is a toxic waste site. It's not safe for people to come into this area. So that's why we don't want people to be here. You know, maybe they're just sure I'm just, you know, let's just give them the benefit of the doubt there. But who do you think the security services are there at the behest of? Is it the government or is it Sinometals?

Is there any difference? I don't think if there is any difference between government and side orbital at this point. Because really, for me, at this point, they are on the BS of the both of them. The government has sent the police and security force on the ground to be able to protect the area, to both protect its own reputation as a government, as a state, because you're responsible of making sure that this kind of thing does not happen.

And also, you don't want to find yourself on the crossfire of NGO reports and saying that the government is not doing anything. And it also serves the interests of Sinometer not to see NGOs and journalists coming and doing reports showing the thing that you've done. So now you can see why people are so skeptical of Chinese companies. And it comes back to this question of why.

But the question is, no, no. The point is, Eric, even if it was not a Chinese company in this case... It would be the same. It would still be the same. The governments would still send security forces to protect the mining investment because ultimately it's about the image that the government wants to preserve about how it was protecting the people or not. Now, on this question of Sinometals not speaking to civil society groups, this is 100% normal. The fact is, is that Chinese companies just do not have...

Yeah.

We'll get a spokesperson or you talk to the government, but don't talk to us. This is an ongoing issue, not just in Africa, but other parts of the world. And it's a frustration that I think a lot of people in civil society in places like Zambia, they get frustrated. You know, I'm curious, Obert, are Western companies more open? If this was Glencore, if this was Ivanhoe and it was the same situation, would they be upfront and give access to civil society groups to have the same kind of conversations?

I don't want to say all Chinese companies are closed off and do not want to engage. I talked to Xiru when we did that first podcast that there are some Chinese companies that are starting to warm up. Of course, you know, there are different, you know, pull factors why they're, you know, starting to open up to engage with civil society. And I gave some of those examples, including Sichuan Yawa.

which is also a Chinese company, you know, investing in lithium sector. But when you look at the difference with Western companies, I also use Zimbabwe as an example. There are companies that have, you know, set up this, you know, a community liaison officer who is someone employed by the company that has a responsibility of ensuring that, you know, you openly engage with the community, you know, and other civil society actors or any other stakeholders, either state or non-state. And Zimbabwe,

This is something that we don't often see with a lot of Chinese companies. But of course, I think, you know, different initiatives such as this, you know, responsible co-bought initiative, CCCMC, you know, coming up with mechanism to be more open. I think it seems like there's a shift from the way I see it

It seems like there's a shift. And one of the conversations we had with Mr. Wang, who is the head of this CCMC mechanism on mediation and consultation, he expressed exactly what you said, that a lot of Chinese companies do not want to engage because they are coming from a different context. They do not know how to do it.

And, you know, we are starting to encourage our members to engage with civil society, because if they don't do that, it's a business risk. Of course, you know, bad reputation, etc. But I think generally it's a challenge for a lot, but there is improvement. I have to acknowledge that. Yeah.

That is very encouraging to hear. Let's move on. We're going to head now a little bit further south. Géraud, we're going to your neck of the woods in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There's two stories about two... Oh, to the north. I keep thinking of... Yes, to the north.

The map in my head is a little bit up there. So we're heading north to the Democratic Republic of Congo. We're going to head to the southern DRC. I'll keep the south there going. So two big stories in the China-Congo mining sector this week that you have been covering. Let's start with the Kamoa Copper Mine that's located in the southern DRC. See, I got the southern part right there. And it's jointly owned by the Canadian mining giant Ivanhoe and China's

mining. Now, this is a very important mine, if you haven't heard of it, because it's the largest copper-producing mine in Africa, which by definition makes it one of the largest copper-producing mines anywhere in the world. The third one in the world. Third in the world. It's a huge mine. And copper is one of the most important metals right now, given that while other metal prices have fallen, copper has remained quite strong. And so there's a lot of money coming out of this mine. Now, the problem with this mine in the Kamoa mine is there's been

some seismic activity. So the Tzu-Chin folks have been saying that there's been damage to the mine. They even said it's going to impact their guidance for the output. Whereas Ivanhoe is coming back and saying, no, this is not the case. Zhihou, pick up the story for us.

So basically, that's quite interesting in a sense where both Zijin and Ivanhoe are joint venture opera companies. They're working together in a joint venture to mine the Kamuakakula project in the DRC. And a few weeks ago, there was some seismic operation, as you mentioned, seismic activities in the area. And Ivanhoe had decided to close off the underground mine for a period of time. But...

Surprisingly, two days later, Zijin released a statement that was like, you know, saying that, you know, all that you mentioned, there are some serious damage. We may impact our production and all of that, our prediction that we're planning for the year. And the next day, Ivanhoe released a statement saying, no, no, that's not the case and everything. For me, the interesting part of all of that, besides the point that they do not agree on the assessment, is that they've made a disagreement public about the assessment. Yeah.

It doesn't seem like they're talking to each other. That's amazing. Exactly, exactly. Which for me, it was really surprising since that Zijin is already one of the main shareholders within Ivanhoe. So, besides Zoe Adventure, Zijin is also kind of the main ownership of Ivanhoe. So, seeing the case, I was like, they could have talked, you know, what's the real assessment here? But seeing Zijin coming out and making a different assessment, I was just kind of like, why they would do that? And

Ivanhoe coming out as well contradicting Zijin on that like something's not giving here maybe there are some issues within the two partners that's boiling down that we don't know but because I don't believe that this is the first disagreement they do have but this is the very much first one that we see they really make it public it's a really with really kind of strong wording coming out of both especially from Ivanhoe when he was contesting Zijin communique I was like why they would do that why they do not like speak to each other yeah and they're doing it

in a nice way. Not like our good friends over at Zijin may have misspoken. They're coming out. Ivanhoe's statement was really aggressive. And you're like, the tensions here are right at the top. I don't know. They're supposed to be working together if it's a joint venture. They're working together. Exactly. Exactly. They're working together. And for me, it's like, if I have to speculate here behind, let me put

speculation glass and also complotist like a complot kind of guy behind I would say maybe Ivanhoe was quite worried believing that since he didn't make a statement like this showing a much more grim situation in my evaluation of the situation Ivanhoe got scared about his

stock price on the market because it would mean to the shareholders that you lied to us about the damage that has been done and your own partner is coming and telling that it's way worse than that. Maybe Ivan will say, if I let you go down that path, you are hurting my stock on the market. You are weakening me and maybe by weakening me, you're trying to make a play to acquire much more stock within my own company. And I believe that maybe

Maybe that would have been the reason why Ivano came out so strong on that statement. Gero, I think that's an excellent theory because remember that Zijin was giving downward guidance on the output from the Camorra mine. So that is exactly the kind of message that the market looks at and says, uh-oh. And so that is an excellent theory. Let's also stay… Because Ivano is the face front of that Camorra project.

Yeah. Well, let's also stay in the DRC. And there's another dispute, this time not between partners. Again, a story that we've been following from the beginning for the past four months, and even beyond the question of cobalt prices. So cobalt for the past few years have just been rock bottom, in part because companies like CMOC Group and

their tenkafungurume mine in the DRC have been flooding the market with cobalt. There's just way too much. We're also seeing a shift right now from away from nickel cobalt manganese batteries to lithium phosphate batteries. In fact, a discussion today that I was having at this conference was how Chevrolet is going to be launching their new bolt with the lithium phosphate battery, no more using cobalt.

So the Congolese government and the state-run mining company decided that back in February, they're going to put an export ban in place. And Glencore loves this because the price of cobalt has gone from about $10 a pound to $16 a pound. So they like the fact that the price is going up, whereas Simak Group, they want to get going again and they want to start selling again and they're trying to bring the ban down. Giro, let's go back to you again. What is at the origin of this dispute between these two companies?

It's a both about economics and geopolitics at the same time. Economics in the sense where when the price started to go low because CIMOC was really producing high level of cobalt since 2022 and 2023, Glencore had to cut off its output of cobalt out of its mine in the DRC, the Kamoto mine and the Mutanda mine. And because of that,

Because of that, CIMOC had become, since then, the largest cobalt producer in the world and continuing its increasing production of cobalt. By maintaining a high level of production on the market, of course, the price kept on going low and not giving enough economic incentive for a company like Glencoe to keep on producing. And,

Something that people don't always talk about is the fact that we had conversation rumors since the last three, four months because of that, that Glencoe compounded with other contextual situation in the DRC. Glencoe is not considering selling all its operations out of the DRC. So when you take all...

All of that. When Glencoe now see that the DOS has put an export ban since February, allowing the price, I'm going to give it in US dollars so people can also have an understanding, going from $20,000 metric ton to $33,000 metric tons the price, Glencoe saw that as a good opportunity to say, you know what, let's the price go up again and maybe we can resume the way we used to resume our mining operation.

CIMOC, on the other hand, said, no, that's not good for us. We want you to lift the ban because we want to keep on production. Because at the same time, despite the export ban, CIMOC maintained a high level of production. So today, both companies like Glencore, the market, and the DRC are really afraid that if we lift the ban without any accompanying measure, the amount of coal that CIMOC is going to put on the market will...

will just like take the price so low that you'll be like, why did we put the ban at the first time? So this is now where you have the tension between Glencore and CMOG and the geopolitical element of it. Of course, you have now the fact that one is a Chinese company, the other is a Western company, and both of them are battling over the supremacy of who's going to be the largest cobalt producer in the world.

And Gero, very quickly, and I'm going to get to another story with Obert, but there's a lot of talk about this U.S. DRC deal. They say it's going to happen in June. You've been very skeptical about it. Do you have any updates for us on what's going on between the U.S. and DRC, that is for minerals in exchange for weapons, something to that extent? Give us what you know.

Weapons, no, but political clout and diplomatic security coming out of the DOS, coming after the United States to provide security with regime survival element, yes. But yes, discussions are really on the ground. Discussions are really happening. They're both side-pushing. There are sense of...

US is really trying to work on a kind of trilateral approach where DRC, Rwanda, the United States companies are present and in a way that they're mining on the DRC, they're processing in Rwanda, which DRC is very against of because they believe that it's rewarding them

bad behavior, but this is the U.S., this is the Pax Americana terms. So the DRC doesn't have much of an option on that. But there's still a lot of discussion on the ground. So for me, there might be a signature happening down June of early July. That's not the point. The point is like, yes, State Department is signing, Trump is signing, but what the U.S. companies are saying? Are they willing to come? Are they ready to come? What guarantee has been given to them? Where are they going to go? So all of that is the much more pressing question. And so far, I haven't heard much

or seen any strong indication from U.S. companies to say, you know what, we are going to back up this process that's taking place right now. Okay, well, let's close out our discussion in Nigeria. Heading west, this time I got it right, far west. We got news this past week that there's going to be potentially a deal for two lithium processing facilities, one valued at $600 million, the other valued at

$200 million. Obert, this is right in your wheelhouse because Zimbabwe is pretty much the only other country in Africa right now that has lithium processing by Chinese companies, Prospect Lithium. And so this is a pretty big deal because it does indicate that there's interest in the Chinese about processing and refining critical minerals in Africa. This has been a question mark as to whether or not the Chinese are going to offshore some of that. This is a pretty big deal at $800 million for these two countries.

facilities. Just to give some context, the Prospect Lithium deal in Zimbabwe was valued at around $300 million. So this is a much larger deal. We don't have a lot of details, but Obert, based on your experience, what do you think is going to happen at these two processing facilities, given the size of the deals, based on your experience?

So this one is a very interesting one for me, because obviously Zimbabwe being one of the biggest African countries producing lithium and with, you know, so much Chinese, you know, companies involved, as you say, like Prospect Lithium, the Sinomine, you know, resources group, etc. And if you look at what has been happening and in the context of lithium, it is not really, you know, value addition that is sophisticated as we would want. A lot of it is just processing raw ore.

into concentrate. And in the strict sense of processing, I think this is not the real value addition that a lot of people have in their minds when they talk of processing of lithium. Talking about the real value of processing lithium, you're talking of moving from a

concentrate to carbonate or lithium hydroxide. That is at least the expectation when policymakers think and when they talk about this, because when you go to the ground, you see that much of it is just the debt that is removed from the oil. And this is what we have seen in Zimbabwe. I don't know in Nigeria if they are going to be producing lithium carbonate or hydroxide from these two projects that are slated in Abuja. Of course, the Minister of Mines, Dr. Adele's

It's very, you know, I think looking forward to these projects, these two projects, value-adding lithium in Nigeria. But of course, there's also, you know, issues to do with cost, whether does Nigeria have the sufficient resources in terms of energy, power, water. Lithium is quite water-intensive in its processing. So we don't know if Nigeria does have...

all these critical ingredients that are needed for processing lithium. And again, maybe I can also refer to this, you know, study that was done by Natural Resources, you know, Governance NRGI Institute, where they were looking at Ghana

NRGI, that's right.

or at least process the lithium in Nigeria? I think those are some of the questions that at least we should start asking, or at least policymakers in Nigeria should be thinking about, do we have the resources that we need? How about if we also learn from other countries like Zimbabwe? Because right now, I tell you for a fact, Zimbabwe hasn't done much in terms of actually processing. In the real sense of processing, what we're exporting is concentrate, which is very low level, unsophisticated, you know, um,

value addition if you may want. Yeah. Yeah. So, Giro, I'm going to give you the last word on this because we got to run. What's your take on this deal? Does this indicate that there is potential for African countries like Nigeria and Zimbabwe to move up meaningfully in the critical mineral refining supply chain and value chain? Or is this as Obert's saying, it's kind of basic, it's not that sophisticated, and it really doesn't show the progress that you'd like to see?

I've been saying that I think it's quite basic so far. What's already covered when it comes to Zimbabwe case, the number that we're seeing from Nigeria, some would speculate that's to be something much more advanced. Because in the case of Zimbabwe, Jejong Kwayokobot and Sinoman have already made a statement by they're going to invest $500 million to be able to now build a sulfate and lithium processing plant in Zimbabwe.

So we are seeing $600 million in the one case was $600 million in Nigeria. I'm just a bit skeptical about that. Those numbers are coming from a public official. I have nothing against public officials, but I've learned with time, especially when it's related to Chinese investment, either loans and everything. There is a...

Slight tendency. I wouldn't say heavy. There is a tendency. You don't even trust the MOUs. You don't even trust the MOUs. You trust signed contracts. That's all you trust. Exactly. There is a slight tendency of exaggerating numbers, exaggerating the content of what's going to be done. So that's why, for instance, I've been digging around like, what difference?

the details of that announcement, what they say they're going to do. They just give a rough number. They talk about processing. Don't forget that in the case of Zimbabwe, they also call it processing and everything. And people like us are starting to say, no, this is not processing. This is a very, very just basic kind of removing the dirt and everything.

to produce concentrate. So I'm going to remain skeptical. I'm going to ask people. I'm not saying that that's not going to happen. I'm just saying you have to be paying attention. Nigerian civic society, you have to ask the right question. You have to ask the details. You have to know the supply chain well to be able to fact check those kind of announcements when they're made to be able to say, okay, we are really moving in the right direction or not. And I think that's really important.

Obert, just before we go and we got to run, because I'm only down to 3% battery and this show is going to shut down if I don't get out of here before 3%. But Obert, you were saying at the conference that Gero's turned into something of a celebrity. Yeah.

Tell us a little bit about that. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, a lot of people that have listened to the China... Everybody knows you, Ho. Everybody wants your autograph. So they know you wrote through the... It's quite popular. A lot of people are like, oh, you're the podcast guy. But they know the CGSP podcast. They know the China Africa podcast very well. It's like...

I'm like, oh, I listened to your podcast. I was like, yes, Eric, you should have been here. People know us. They listen to what we do. And I know that they're going to listen to this show again. So yes, people know what we do and really happy to be able to put the narrative out there, to be able to share people's understanding about Chinese engagement in the global South and Africa as well. Well, and listen, here in Hawaii at this conference where there were a lot of national security folks from the United States, they are big followers of the podcast as well. So I want to give a big shout out there. So from Hawaii all the way to Lusaka,

We're very, very thrilled about the audience and just welcome everybody for listening to us. So gentlemen, thank you so much for your coverage. I want to remind everybody that both Giraud and Obert are writing some fantastic analysis on our website at ChinaGlobalSouth.com. We've been publishing a regular cadence of articles from both of them on all of these issues.

We're stepping up our critical minerals coverage, not only in Africa, but around the world. Also, Obert is working closely with our team in Jakarta and doing some more south-south learnings between what's happening in Indonesia and Zimbabwe and other things like that. And Giraud is working on a number of great data projects that are going to be coming out this year, including an

update of the Cobalt data set that we have. So we've got some just some amazing things. Go to ChinaGlobalSouth.com. And if you want to support the work that Obert and Giraud are doing and everybody at CGSP around the world, go to ChinaGlobalSouth.com slash.

Subscribe. Subscriptions are very affordable. And especially if you are a student or teacher, we'll give you a discount. Just email me, eric at china globalsouth.com, and you'll get half off your subscription. So for Obert in Zimbabwe, Giro in Mauritius, and me in Hawaii today, I want to thank you all for taking the time to listen. And we'll all be back again next week with another edition of the China in Africa podcast. Thank you so much for watching and for listening.

The discussion continues online. Follow the China Global South project on Blue Sky NX, a China GS project, or on YouTube at China Global South and share your thoughts on today's show or head over to our website at chinaglobalsouth.com where you can subscribe to receive full access to more than 5,000 articles and podcasts. Once again, that's chinaglobalsouth.com.

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