Cosa si muove effettivamente
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.
- Il materiale
- Copper
- La varietà
- Oxide and mixed copper ore of the Central African Copperbelt
- Dove inizia
- Democratic Republic of the Congo — Kolwezi and the Lualaba copper-cobalt belt
Passo dopo passo, confine per confine
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Kolwezi, Lualaba detenuto da Operators with Gécamines as state partner (Minatore)
A richer orebody than most
Open-pit and underground mining of sediment-hosted ore that runs several times the grade of a typical porphyry.
Perché qui: 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 detenuto da Operators (Chimico)
Leaching with acid
Crushed ore is leached in sulfuric acid. Copper and cobalt dissolve together into a pregnant leach solution.
Che fine ha fatto il resto: Acid is trucked in or made on site. In a landlocked country, the reagent supply chain is as hard as the metal one.
Perché qui: No smelter needed, so no reason to ship the ore anywhere.
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Same plant detenuto da Operators (Raffinatore)
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.
Perché qui: 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 detenuto da 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.
Perché qui: 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 detenuto da Fabricators (Produttore)
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.
Perché qui: Once it is cathode, copper is copper.
Questo è un esempio elaborato. Segue una quantità iniziale dichiarata attraverso rese e recuperi tipici pubblicati, così che le proporzioni siano verificabili; non è il resoconto di una spedizione specifica. I dati di percorso — quali paesi, quali processi e perché il materiale non può semplicemente essere trattato altrove — sono compilati da fonti di pubblico dominio.