Wat er werkelijk wordt vervoerd
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.
- Het materiaal
- Copper
- De variëteit
- Oxide and mixed copper ore of the Central African Copperbelt
- Waar het begint
- Democratic Republic of the Congo — Kolwezi and the Lualaba copper-cobalt belt
Stap voor stap, en grens voor grens
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Kolwezi, Lualaba in beheer bij Operators with Gécamines as state partner (Mijnbouwer)
A richer orebody than most
Open-pit and underground mining of sediment-hosted ore that runs several times the grade of a typical porphyry.
Waarom hier: 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 in beheer bij Operators (Chemisch)
Leaching with acid
Crushed ore is leached in sulfuric acid. Copper and cobalt dissolve together into a pregnant leach solution.
Wat er met de rest gebeurde: Acid is trucked in or made on site. In a landlocked country, the reagent supply chain is as hard as the metal one.
Waarom hier: No smelter needed, so no reason to ship the ore anywhere.
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Same plant in beheer bij Operators (Raffinaderij)
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.
Waarom hier: 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 in beheer bij Hauliers and traders (Handelaar)
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.
Waarom hier: 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 in beheer bij Fabricators (Fabrikant)
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.
Waarom hier: Once it is cathode, copper is copper.
Dit is een uitgewerkt voorbeeld. Het volgt een opgegeven beginhoeveelheid door gepubliceerde typische opbrengsten en rendementen, zodat de verhoudingen controleerbaar zijn; het is geen verslag van een concrete zending. Routefeiten — welke landen, welke processen, en waarom het materiaal niet zomaar elders kan worden verwerkt — zijn samengesteld uit openbare bronnen.