At the end of November 2018, the company AVZ Minerals, a partner of the Cominiere (public mining company created on the ashes of former Zairetain), declared a reserve of 6.6 million tons of lithium on the Manono deposit, in the ex Katanga province, still under exploration.With this announcement, the DRC is expected to rank second among the countries holding this resource, just after Chile (7 million tonnes of reserves).
The expert from the mining sector Mr. Léonide Mupepele, starting from this new situation, has come to the conclusion that very soon, the DR Congo will be counted among the largest producers of lithium in the world.However, his concern is to know if the country is ready today to assume as the world's leading lithium power.
In his analysis, he points out that unlike the majority of deposits in the world where lithium is extracted from brines (salt lakes), the characteristic of Congolese lithium is that it comes in the form of a mineral called " spodumene ", found in association with cassiterite (tin ore) and columbo-tantalite, in a metamorphic rock of magmatic origin, called pegmatite.This is why, he says, AVZ Minerals announced, in the process, the joint discovery of substantial reserves of 300 thousand tons of cassiterite and 13.2 thousand tons of coltan.
The mining expert Léonide Mupepele also notes, in addition to AVZ Minerals, two other Force Commodities projects in joint venture with Cominiere for one and with MMR for the other, are in the process of exploration on the sites of Kitotolo and Kanuka, located further south, in the continuation of the same pegmatite, with encouraging first results, formally confirming the extension of the mineralization highlighted in the north of the pegmatite by AVZ Minerals.
With these three projects in total, he estimates, Manono District is set to become the world's largest lithium reservoir, with the goal of becoming the world's first industrial and lithium mineral production pool.But his concern is how the country should prepare to support these projects so as to ensure maximum impact on the national economy.
"Already, AVZ Minerals plans to build a mega-plant in Congo with an annual capacity of 300,000 tonnes / year of lithium carbonate, while the global production of this material is currently about 285,000 tonnes / year.The Congolese company will thus double the global capacity of lithium carbonate production, thus propelling the DR Congo into a leading position in the world lithium market, "he said.
Increase energy supply
At the current price of 13,000 usd / ton of lithium carbonate, the expected turnover is 4 billion Usd / year;which would make AVZ Minerals, the largest mining project in the Congo, said expert Mupepele."But beyond the expected mining rent of lithium mining and social development actions for residents planned under the social and environmental plans, the fundamental objective of the Government should be to recycle in the domestic economy the maximum amount of money on the amount of turnover that mining companies will have to spend on purchasing services and inputs,"he advises.
And to increase: "In addition to the energy supply that may be insufficient (the installed capacity of the ex-Zairetain CHE of Pania-Muanga is only 28 MW, while the needs of the future zone could be beyond 100 Mw), and the important issue of transport routes for mining exports and supply, the Government should think about the creation of an industrial belt aimed at locally producing the inputs and services needed for smooth operation. mines ".
For him, the objective is to minimize the needs of mining companies in importing inputs in order to give residents a maximum share of the share of turnover that these companies will agree to their operating expenses.
