Why does Congo have a near monopoly in Cobalt extraction? Is all the Cobalt in the world really only in Congo? Or is it something else? Congo produces 80% of the global cobalt supply. Why only Congo? Is the entirety of cobalt located ONLY in Congo?
In: Earth Science
The copper belt of southern Congo has both a high concentration of cobalt and a lot of it.
When you mine cobalt, you pull out cobalt with other rocks – copper and rocks you don’t want. The percentage of cobalt in the rocks in southern Congo (and the percentage of copper) is among the highest in the world.
Not only is there a lot of cobalt in the rock, there’s a lot of it, these deposits are massive, spread out over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers.
So you have some of the largest (if not the largest) deposits of cobalt in the world and they have some of the highest concentrations of cobalt in the world. That makes mining in Congo attractive even though it is one of the most challenging and expensive places for miners to operate.
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