Kinshasa's hopes and the coming cobalt crunch - Energy Voice

The energy transition is seen as marking a shift away from the “bad old” habits of the fossil fuel industry, but accessing the strategic resources pose their own often-overlooked problems.

These new resources, such as cobalt, lithium and manganese, are essential to cutting emissions and limiting climate change. But new developments pose their own challenges, which may yet come to hamper uptake of alternative resources.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has suggested demand for minerals to support the energy transition will double to 2040. If the world took the steps required to limit warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, demand for these minerals would quadruple.

Cobalt is perhaps the leading example of a contested mineral that will play a key role in the transition. Congo Kinshasa accounted for around 70% of supply in 2019. Russia and Australia provide around 4% each. Cobalt is mostly produced from copper mines.

At a forum last week in Kinshasa, a number of high-ranking politicians and executives got together to talk over improved ways of pursuing opportunities.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said the country’s minerals provided it with a “strategic position to influence the global renewable energy transition”.

Building power

In particular, a new study from BloombergNEF (BNEF) was touted as showing that building a 10,000 tonne battery cathode precursor plant in Congo would cost only $39 million. This would be cheaper than Poland, China or the US.

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