Wheres can this UPI article be found that everyone keeps referring to??
The Drudge report times out.
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Announcement from ERM has made my day. :)
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Yes @DaisyA, This is right "the Chinese won't get their hands on this which makes manipulation more difficult for them, and secondly we now have two tech/ retail billionaires getting into lithium".
RIO is also interested in Manono. RIO has already some interest in Rwanda which is the country backs M23 rebels in DRC's North where the Manono Mine is very close to. SO RIO looks quite confident at the area. Do you know why? Because the M23 rebels backed by Rwanda are in the control of northern area of DRC where Manono is located.
Yes it looks like Zijin is going to get the North Manono mine in production maybe in next year as they did huge job in one year. (I too was following it from Google Earth, it just came out all of a sudden. Good job). I have identified a solar farm about 5MWh (I've counted 8000 x 600Wh panels. It's 1/3 of what we have in KV project which 15MWh). Zijin is already operating at the Southern region of Katanga. They have a big copper mine there. So they know the area and the people.
The logistics (technical parts, maintenance, etc.) would be hard to manage as well.
I can imagine Zijin will bring an army of Chinese workers there and will hold a huge amount of spare parts and regents stock. But it's all going to happen at a cost. Its not free indeed.
But it'll be very hard and expensive to get to spod concentrate to the ports.
The shipment needs to go though at least one country (if through Angola) otherwise two countries at least. So it'll be taxed and bribed by many many officials.
The best solution for Zijin must be to produce directly lithium carbonate and shop it by plane to China. LOL... quite expensive but Chinese may not care.
So the cost of spodumene will be high then although the cost of processing would be quite good as it's a high grade (1.6%) resource. (not much higher than ours though)
Copper production is different to spod production. They an produce the copper metal in the plant and it's being lower volume and higher value product than spodumene concentrate. Gold is even better.
Zijin may think to produce directly lithium carbonate from the spodumene on site. That's be better for them. But then the lithium carbonate trucks will be more valuable for the robbers. Anyway, it's not our problem.
The northern area of DRC is very dangerous. It's not like the southern part. The cobalt, tantalum and gold mining at the north is very much at the hands of rebels. Majority of world cobalt supply is extracted by artisanal mining (by hands) in this area. The bosses are war lords. All their job of these rebels is mining those minerals and also robbing mining projects.
THE CONFLICT IN DRC AND RWANDA IS ALL ABOUT CONTROL OVER THE MINERALS AND MINING.
It's all about MONEY.
No religious, no racial, no national, nothing, but MONEY..!
And the mines have money in DRC.
IT'S ALL DONE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT OFFICALS, GOV. ARMY AND REBELS WHICH ALSO HAVE TIES WITH THE GOV. ARMIES (BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL EX-ARMY OFFICALS).
SO, NOWHERE TO GO FOR THE MINING COMPANIES BUT HAVE TO PAY THE PRICE FOR THEIR MINING IN DRC.
There are 3 corrupt sources needs to be fed by bribery for one mining operation. They all want it, you can't ignore one;
Gov. officialsGov. Army officialsRebels (incorporation with army officials from both sides)
The rebels even allow the mines to be built because after that they will have the opportunity rob them. The image explains it well. (It's old but the situation is the same).
This is the main map of area, showing the Manono mine location. It looks at south but it's actually in the conflict zone and totally separated from Katanga province where there are a number of mines.
There are a number of mines at the Katanga province at south, close to Zambia border. Majority of Chinese and some Glencore. This area has been mined and exploited by the Europeans for more than 100 years (including Manono at north which was a tin mine). Katanga area is relatively safer than Manono area but there is very little infrastructure there. The reason there copper resources are there best in the world. A very special high grade copper bearing geological structure sedimentary layer comes from the southwest (at depth) to the Katanga province and surfaces there. There is no other kind of this structure in the world. It has also gold as well. (copper and gold always together).
There are 3 main town there; Kolwezi, Likasi and Lubumbashi.
Everything happens between these towns. The roads between these towns are also only muddy and full of big holes.
Manono is at the north. Totally separated from the Katanga province region. It lives in its own.
The roads are so bad, it's incredible.
The truck goes from Lubumbashi to Bukama (at north of Kolwezi) for 650km in 4 weeks..! Not even close to Manono. See the video here. And see if it's sustainable for a miner.
these is the alternative exports routes from Manono.
Anyway it's not easy, not even for Chinese.
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