Category: Mining

The Chinese state-owned steelmaker Sinosteel signed a $690 million deal to mine iron ore at southern Cameroon’s Lobe Mine. The deal is part of China’s ongoing attempts to lessen its dependence on Australian iron ore, as it also diversifies its sourcing away from other major suppliers, like Brazil.  ...

Ghana's worsening economic crisis is prompting concerns it will further erode the country's already weak environmental governance system that Chinese actors have profited from in the mining, fishing, and timber sectors. Meantime, local communities across the country suffer amid declining fish ...

The popular Congolese news site Actualites.CD published an in-depth report by Lumbubashi-based journalist Anto Mulanga that details the widespread use of child labor in small-scale mines in the southeastern cobalt mining belt. While the report is not exclusively focused on how independent small-scale ...

The Chinese mineral exploration and mining company Sinomine (aka China Mining Resources Group) announced on Tuesday that it’s withdrawing from a mining and construction contract with the Zambian government because of Zambia’s debt crisis and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.  The company released ...

Chinese ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zhu Jing, is back in Kinshasa now after a week-long tour earlier this month to the country's strategically important mining zones in Lualaba and Katanga Provinces. Those two regions are at the heart of a rapidly escalating geopolitical ...

Bloomberg journalists Michael Kavanagh and William Clowes are the subjects of a new mini-documentary that explains how China became the dominant foreign mining power in the DR Congo. The 17-minute video doesn't provide any new information about the origins of companies SICOMINES or ...

The impact of the floods that disrupted operations at South Africa’s Durban harbor is being felt throughout the cobalt supply chain. The Swiss cobalt miner Glencore reacted by declaring force majeure, but so far little has been heard from the Chinese companies that dominate both cobalt mining in ...

The Karongi Intermediate Court in Rwanda's decision to hand down a hefty prison sentence on Tuesday to Chinese mining boss Sun Shujun for brutally beating his employees sparked an outpouring of emotion online. "The Chinese are there mining the minerals and stealing ...

The Chinese embassy in Nigeria has hurriedly expressed support for calls to clean up the Osun River, which feeds into the densely inhabited Lagos lagoon, following months of reporting that Chinese mining companies are partly responsible for polluting the waterway with heavy metals. ...

China's ambassador to the DR Congo, Zhu Jing, paid a visit on Monday to meet Alphonse Kaputo, the powerful chairman of the country's state-run mining company Gécamines. The courtesy call was no doubt part of an effort to try and mend ties with ...

China's ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zhu Jing, made a high-profile visit over the weekend to one of the country's most important power brokers in the heart of the cobalt mining zone in the southern mining belt in Katanga province. ...

China has faced withering criticism in the DR Congo over the past year that it has failed to live up to the promises it made to build infrastructure in exchange for access to the country's vast mineral and metal resources. So, part of ...