What is actually moving
Oxidised copper minerals dissolve in sulfuric acid. That means the metal can be leached, extracted and plated into finished cathode at the mine site, and leave the country as a 99.99% product rather than as a concentrate. It is the same metal as the Chilean route and a completely different journey.
- The material
- Copper
- The variety
- Oxide and mixed copper ore of the Central African Copperbelt
- Where it starts
- Democratic Republic of the Congo — Kolwezi and the Lualaba copper-cobalt belt
Step by step, and border by border
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Kolwezi, Lualaba held by Operators with Gécamines as state partner (Miner)
A richer orebody than most
Open-pit and underground mining of sediment-hosted ore that runs several times the grade of a typical porphyry.
Why here: The Central African Copperbelt is one of the richest copper provinces on Earth, and it carries cobalt with it.
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Hydrometallurgical plant on site held by Operators (Chemical)
Leaching with acid
Crushed ore is leached in sulfuric acid. Copper and cobalt dissolve together into a pregnant leach solution.
What happened to the rest: Acid is trucked in or made on site. In a landlocked country, the reagent supply chain is as hard as the metal one.
Why here: No smelter needed, so no reason to ship the ore anywhere.
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Same plant held by Operators (Refiner)
Solvent extraction and electrowinning
An organic solvent picks the copper selectively out of the solution and releases it into a clean electrolyte; current then plates it onto cathode blanks. Cobalt is precipitated separately as a hydroxide.
Why here: This is the whole point of the route. The finished metal is made at the mine, in the country that owns the orebody.
South Africa · To Durban, Dar es Salaam or Beira held by Hauliers and traders (Trader)
Two thousand kilometres by road
Cathode is bundled and trucked across one or two borders to a port. Delays at the border are measured in days.
Why here: Being landlocked is the permanent tax on this journey — and it is why the cobalt beside it travels the same road.
China · Wherever it is bought held by Fabricators (Manufacturer)
Straight into the wire market
Cathode from Kolwezi is the same product as cathode from Guixi and trades on the same terms. Nobody downstream can tell which route it took.
Why here: Once it is cathode, copper is copper.
This is a worked example. It follows a stated starting quantity through published typical yields and recoveries, so the proportions are checkable; it is not a record of a specific shipment. Route facts — which countries, which processes, and why the material cannot simply be handled somewhere else — are compiled from public reporting.