Qué es lo que se mueve realmente
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.
- El material
- Copper
- La variedad
- Oxide and mixed copper ore of the Central African Copperbelt
- Dónde empieza
- Democratic Republic of the Congo — Kolwezi and the Lualaba copper-cobalt belt
Paso a paso, y frontera por frontera
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Kolwezi, Lualaba en poder de Operators with Gécamines as state partner (Minero)
A richer orebody than most
Open-pit and underground mining of sediment-hosted ore that runs several times the grade of a typical porphyry.
Por qué aquí: 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 en poder de Operators (Químico)
Leaching with acid
Crushed ore is leached in sulfuric acid. Copper and cobalt dissolve together into a pregnant leach solution.
Qué ocurrió con el resto: Acid is trucked in or made on site. In a landlocked country, the reagent supply chain is as hard as the metal one.
Por qué aquí: No smelter needed, so no reason to ship the ore anywhere.
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Same plant en poder de Operators (Refinador)
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.
Por qué aquí: 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 en poder de Hauliers and traders (Comerciante)
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.
Por qué aquí: 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 en poder de Fabricators (Fabricante)
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.
Por qué aquí: Once it is cathode, copper is copper.
Este es un ejemplo resuelto. Sigue una cantidad de partida declarada a través de rendimientos y recuperaciones típicos publicados, por lo que las proporciones son verificables; no es el registro de un envío concreto. Los datos de la ruta — qué países, qué procesos y por qué el material no puede simplemente manipularse en otro lugar — se han compilado a partir de información pública.