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Mines/DR Congo

Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) / Katanga Mining Complex mine

Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) / Katanga Mining Complex mine, DR Congo. Producing, open pit and underground, mining cobalt, copper.

Why Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) / Katanga Mining Complex is famous

Katanga Mining, 75 per cent Glencore and 25 per cent Gecamines, runs the KOV, KTO and Mashamba East mines and the Luilu refinery in DR Congo. It made 270,700 t of refined copper and 23,900 t of cobalt in hydroxide in 2020, against 234,500 t and 17,100 t in 2019. The target was 300,000 t of copper and 30,000 t of cobalt hydroxide a year by 2022.1,2

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1977 to 1978Shaba invasions trigger a cobalt market panic3
  2. 2000 to 2020DRC cobalt boom4
  3. 2013Glencore completes merger with Xstrata5

What kind of deposit

Sediment-hosted stratabound copper

Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) / Katanga Mining Complex today

Where cobalt is mined todayWhere copper is mined todayMining in DR Congo

Where next

People

Discovered byJules CornetA young Belgian geologist found Katanga's copper on foot.6

Mines

Same kind of depositKamoa-KakulaBoth are DR Congo copper mines: Kamoa-Kakula made 388,838 t in 2025.7

Events

Owned byGlencore completes merger with XstrataGlencore holds 75 per cent of Katanga Mining. Gecamines holds the other 25 per cent.1Led toShaba invasions trigger a cobalt market panicRead the 1978 story that unfolded near Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) / Katanga Mining Complex.1Led toDRC cobalt boomRead what happened near Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) / Katanga Mining Complex: DRC cobalt boom.1

Places

Located inKolweziKamoto Copper Company (KCC) / Katanga Mining Complex is about 8 km from Kolwezi.1

Deposit types

An example ofSediment-hosted stratabound copperA working example of the sediment-hosted stratabound copper type.8

Sources

  1. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  2. 2020-21 Minerals Yearbook, Congo (Kinshasa) (advance release) US Geological Survey
  3. Investigation of U.S. Foreign Reliance on Critical Minerals, OFR 2020-1127 US Geological Survey
  4. China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and artisanal cobalt mining from 2000 through 2020 (publication page) US Geological Survey
  5. Glencore timeline
  6. Biographie Belge d'Outre-Mer: Cornet, Jules Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences (KAOW-ARSOM)
  7. 2025 production results and 2026 guidance, 15 January 2026 Ivanhoe Mines
  8. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

Pictures on this page: Portrait Jules Cornet.jpg, Unknown author (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Malachite on cobaltocalcite, Musonoi by Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 3.0. Pictures: Kopermijn te Kolwezi in de provincie Shaba (Katanka), Mieremet, Rob / Anefo / Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Chiquicamata Mine, Chile, NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)).