Что фактически перемещается
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.
- Материал
- Copper
- Разновидность
- Oxide and mixed copper ore of the Central African Copperbelt
- Начальная точка
- Democratic Republic of the Congo — Kolwezi and the Lualaba copper-cobalt belt
Шаг за шагом, граница за границей
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Kolwezi, Lualaba хранится у Operators with Gécamines as state partner (Горнодобывающая компания)
A richer orebody than most
Open-pit and underground mining of sediment-hosted ore that runs several times the grade of a typical porphyry.
Почему именно здесь: 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 хранится у Operators (Химический)
Leaching with acid
Crushed ore is leached in sulfuric acid. Copper and cobalt dissolve together into a pregnant leach solution.
Что произошло с остатком: Acid is trucked in or made on site. In a landlocked country, the reagent supply chain is as hard as the metal one.
Почему именно здесь: No smelter needed, so no reason to ship the ore anywhere.
Democratic Republic of the Congo · Same plant хранится у Operators (Рафинировщик)
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.
Почему именно здесь: 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 хранится у Hauliers and traders (Трейдер)
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.
Почему именно здесь: 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 хранится у Fabricators (Производитель)
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.
Почему именно здесь: Once it is cathode, copper is copper.
Это разработанный пример. Он прослеживает заявленное исходное количество материала через типовые опубликованные выходы и коэффициенты извлечения, поэтому соотношения поддаются проверке; это не запись о конкретной отгрузке. Данные о маршруте — какие страны, какие процессы и почему материал не может быть переработан в другом месте — собраны из общедоступных источников.