ERG reports resurgence of army-backed intruders at Congo cobalt site
Illegal mining at one of the world's largest cobalt operations threatens $10 billion in future revenues and could slash the mine's lifespan by two-thirds.
Soldiers and heavy machinery are back at Metalkol. Eurasian Resources Group says military-backed intruders have resumed illegal extraction at its cobalt operation near Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the largest such sites on the planet.
The incursion threatens to cut the mine’s operational life from nine years to three. At current commodity prices, ERG estimates that puts roughly $10 billion in future revenues at risk.
What’s happening at Metalkol
The intruders are affiliated with Societe Cooperative Miniere Hosanna and led by businessman Fatou Ntete Etumba. They claim authorization for riverbed remediation work. ERG sees it differently: thousands of tonnes of mineral-rich tailings are being hauled away daily using heavy machinery, including excavators and dump trucks.
Metalkol sits atop more than 100 million tonnes of tailings, essentially reprocessed mining waste that still contains commercially significant concentrations of cobalt and copper. That stockpile is the mine’s entire value proposition. Removing it illegally doesn’t just steal product. It destroys the asset itself.
The Congolese General Inspectorate of Mines is currently mediating the dispute between ERG and the cooperative.
This isn’t a new problem, either. Previous illegal mining activities at ERG concessions date back to at least 2022 and 2023. Across its DRC operations, ERG has documented historical incursions leading to estimated annual losses of nearly $2 billion. The current episode at Metalkol is the most dramatic escalation yet.
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Why cobalt supply chains matter
The DRC produces the majority of the world’s cobalt, a metal that remains essential for lithium-ion batteries powering everything from electric vehicles to smartphones to grid-scale energy storage.
Metalkol’s tailings operation reprocesses waste material left behind by decades of earlier copper and cobalt extraction, making it both lower-cost and more environmentally sustainable than opening new mines.
Government responses to illegal mining in the DRC have included presidential directives aimed at reducing armed presence at mining sites. The fact that soldiers are reportedly facilitating the very extraction those directives were meant to prevent illustrates the gap between policy and enforcement in the country’s mining sector.
The deeper tension
ERG itself has navigated controversy before. The Kazakhstan-headquartered group has faced scrutiny over its relationships with DRC officials and its own governance practices. But in this case, the company is clearly the aggrieved party, watching a core asset get physically carted away truck by truck.
If ERG’s estimate is accurate and the mine’s life really could shrink from nine years to three, that’s a significant chunk of future supply removed from the market.