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The crazy ambitions of the DRC in lithium www.lemonde.fr To stay up to date on African news, subscribe to the Monde Afrique newsletter from this link. Every Saturday at 6 am, find a week of news and debates covered by the editorial staff of Le Monde Afrique. A lithium car battery factory in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu province, in March 2021. STR / AFP Will the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) tomorrow be at the heart of the global energy transition? In any case, this is the ambition of the Congolese authorities who develop the country's lithium resources, an essential mineral for the production of batteries for electric vehicles, and its competitiveness for those who want to set up production plants there. The country has a case: it has the largest untapped hard rock lithium reserves in the world. Only ten kilometers of its subsoil have been studied out of the hundred which would be full of this ore. But, already, a reserve of 132 million tonnes proven and probable, that is to say exploitable profitably, has been discovered. Read also Mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: "Looting which reduces part of the population to a form of slavery" This makes it the country with the greatest potential on the African continent and suggests that it could one day pass Australia, which has the fifth largest reserves in the world and is the largest lithium producer on the planet. Australian company AVZ Minerals is not mistaken: in 2023 it plans to start mining the world's largest hard rock lithium deposit. It is located in the city of Manono, in the province of Tanganyika (southeast), stronghold of the family of former President Joseph Kabila. It was notably the brother of the former head of state, Zoé, deputy for Manono and then governor of the province until May 2021, who pushed for the development of the sector. Beijing very interested The site owned by AVZ Minerals since 2016 has an exploitable reserve of 132 million tonnes, which would place this mine in the top 5 in the world. Something to whet appetites: the Chinese group Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL), world leader in battery manufacturing, has decided to gain a foothold in Manono through a joint venture called Suzhou CATH Energy Technologies. It has planned to invest $ 240 million for a 24% stake in the project and could spend up to $ 400 million in total. The AVZ Minerals deposit and other lithium exploration permits around Manono are of great interest to Beijing, which intends to remain the leader in battery production, for which global demand is expected to increase fourteen-fold by 2030 according to Statista, according to Statista. at the same time more than tripling the lithium requirements. Read also: Mining contracts in the DRC: "Congolese companies are at the heart of the problem" For the DRC, the start of production at the AVZ Minerals mine, the very first lithium mine in the country, would be a turning point in making Kinshasa a stronghold in the energy transition. The country is already the world's largest producer of cobalt, used for the manufacture of batteries and wind turbines, and the world's fourth largest producer of copper, which is used in the assembly of electric cars and most renewable energy infrastructure. The authorities, however, see beyond the mere extraction of these minerals. During the DRC-Africa Business Forum in Kinshasa at the end of November, which brought together heads of state, banks and companies in the Congolese capital to determine how "to develop a value chain around the industry of batteries, electric vehicles and energy clean ”in Africa, the government has announced that it wants to participate in their production on its territory by transforming lithium. "$ 46 trillion by 2050" "The DRC is the most competitive destination in the world to set up battery factories," said Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi. The challenge: to capture part of the "$ 8 trillion" in revenue from the sale of electric vehicles by 2025, "46 trillion by 2050," he continued. An objective supported by a Bloomberg study which states that building this type of plant costs less in the DRC than in the United States or China. However, national ambitions risk coming up against many obstacles. First, with regard to the Manono deposit: to bring its mine into production, AVZ Minerals must finalize the transaction with Suzhou CATH Energy Technologies, then it will still have a few tens of millions of dollars to find to dispose of the 545 million needed in total. Read also Accused of corruption
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