A shareholder dispute over one of the world’s biggest copper and cobalt mines is heating up in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after state miner Gecamines SA threatened to block exports or even take the mine away from its partner, China Molybdenum Co (CMOC, 洛陽欒川鉬業).
Gecamines, which owns 20 percent of the Tenke Fungurume mine’s holding company, accused CMOC of manipulating the project’s finances and said it owes as much as US$5 billion in payments.
The disagreement has extended to who is actually running the mine: A Congolese court appointed a temporary administrator to manage the holding company, while the shareholders sort out their differences, but CMOC said nothing has changed.
The administrator, Sage Ngoie Mbayo, said he now controls the company’s bank accounts, but was last week blocked from entering the mine site by Congolese soldiers.
Things were set to come to a head on Thursday at the first meeting between the shareholders and Ngoie at Tenke Fungurume Mining SA’s (TFM) offices in the Congolese mining hub of Lubumbashi, but while Gecamines’ top two executives were there, CMOC representatives did not attend.
Gecamines chief executive officer Bester-Hilaire Ntambwe Ngoy Kabongo and his deputy, Leon Mwine Kabiena, said they are prepared to take more drastic action, including effectively revoking CMOC’s ownership of the project by dissolving the partnership.
“If it continues like this, we are going to ask for the dissolution,” the CEO said.
The two executives became increasingly agitated during the meeting, which lasted two hours in a boardroom surrounded by otherwise-empty company offices, while armed guards stood outside.
“What CMOC is doing now is stealing, it’s cheating, it’s covering-up,” Mwine said, adding that they were “liars,” “pillagers,” “bandits” and “criminals.”
CMOC did not immediately answer questions on the meeting or Gecamines’ statements.
The company previously said the mine is operating as usual without any change in management, and production is beating targets.
In its annual report last year, CMOC said communication with Gecamines was “complex and dynamic,” and it planned to engage an independent third party to verify disagreements over reserve estimates “and resolve the differences through fair and impartial negotiation.”
Any disruption to operations or exports from Tenke Fungurume could send ripples through global metals markets. The DRC is one of the world’s top producers of copper and by far the largest supplier of the key battery mineral cobalt.
Tenke Fungurume alone accounts for about 14 percent of world cobalt production, according to calculations by Bloomberg using figures from Darton Commodities, and the ore body is expected to last for decades.
Other commodities:
‧Gold for August delivery fell US$9.30 to US$1,840.60 an ounce, dropping 1.86 percent from a week earlier.
‧Silver for July delivery fell US$0.30 to US$21.59 an ounce, down 1.55 percent on the week, while July copper fell US$0.10 to US$4.01 a pound, plunging 6.53 percent weekly.
Additional reporting by AP
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure