By Felix Njini
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Gecamines aims to produce 30 metric tons of germanium a year at a plant which is nearing completion in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the state-owned copper and cobalt producer said on Thursday.
Starting in September, the plant at Big Bill slag in Lubumbashi will process waste material from the tailings site and germanium could be available on the market from October, Gecamines Chairman Guy Robert Lukama told Reuters.
China on Monday announced export curbs on some gallium and germanium products, citing national security interests, causing concern in the semiconductor and defence sectors, which use the metals in products from computer chips to fibre-optic cables.
“The move by China will create some scarcity in the market, which means that our germanium which is not yet committed could have more value,” Lukama said in an interview.
“There are no customers yet, but there is interest, its been there since we started the project and we are quite sure that we will get more interest on our germanium shortly.”
The Chinese curbs from Aug. 1 could disrupt global supply chains, as China controls most production of the metals.
Gecamines expects to see more interest for its metals and could enter into sales contracts from 2024, Lukama said.
The plant at the Big Hill slag will also process copper, cobalt and silver cost effectively, as it is cheaper to recover metal from tailings, he added.
Congo is the world’s top cobalt supplier and Africa’s biggest copper producer.
Gecamines also plans to explore the viability of processing gallium and could consider further investments to recover germanium from old mining sites if global demand firms up.
“In the past germanium was not critical that is why they just put them as a tailings,” Lukama said.
“If the demand is huge, then we can spend more money on restoration of those mines to convert into viable projects.”
(Reporting by Felix Njini; Editing by Jason Neely and Alexander Smith)