Mercuria Sizes Up Congo Coltan Mine as Trump Pursues Peace Deal
(Bloomberg) — Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. has held discussions with a US-backed investment company about developing a prized tantalum project in a Congolese war zone, if the Trump administration can broker a peace deal.
The Geneva-based trading house and TechMet Ltd. are considering a venture to modernize mining and processing at one of the world’s richest deposits of tantalum-bearing coltan ore, near the eastern Congolese town of Rubaya, according to people familiar with the matter.
The potential collaboration is being explored as the governments of the US and the Democratic Republic of Congo near a deal to boost American investment in the central African nation’s mineral reserves, including copper, cobalt and lithium. Rubaya is one of the assets involved in those deliberations, with tantalum playing a crucial role in high-tech industries including electronics, aerospace and defense.
TechMet and Mercuria have held early-stage discussions with the US government, but are yet to engage officially with Congolese authorities, two of the people said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. Kinshasa is eager to bring in US-aligned investors in pursuit of peace and to boost the economy.
Any deal, however, would require the withdrawal from Rubaya of M23 rebels, who control mining in the region and – according to the US and United Nations – are backed by neighboring Rwanda.
State-owned Societe Aurifere du Kivu et du Maniema SA, or SAKIMA, holds the permit near Rubaya containing the coveted coltan mining areas, according to an online government register. But the firm cannot access the concession due to the conflict in eastern Congo. It also secured a court victory last month in an ongoing legal dispute with another local company, which claims to be the rightful owner of the license.
Mercuria, TechMet and SAKIMA declined to comment. Congo’s mines minister and the US State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
TechMet is a Dublin-based critical minerals investment company which counts the US International Development Finance Corp. and the Qatar Investment Authority among its major shareholders. The company has already invested in Trinity Metals Ltd., a producer of tin, tungsten and tantalum – known collectively as the 3Ts – in Rwanda.
Mercuria – which also owns a significant interest in TechMet – is making an aggressive push into metals trading, with a particular focus on copper produced in Congo and Zambia.
Congo and Rwanda accounted for almost 60% of the world’s tantalum output of about 2,500 tons last year, according to the US Geological Survey.
Coltan – which contains both tantalum and niobium – is mainly extracted in Congo using rudimentary methods and often in dangerous conditions by so-called artisanal miners. Several companies have aspired to mechanize mining operations in the area, especially at Rubaya, but years of conflict and instability have hampered those efforts.
President Donald Trump’s administration is mediating a peace deal between Congo and Rwanda that aims to end decades of deadly violence in the border region. The US is also pursuing minerals partnerships with both nations as it seeks to loosen China’s grip of supply chains of key materials required for industries such as defense and the energy transition.
The “industrialization of Rubaya” is part of that initiative, Massad Boulos, the US State Department’s senior adviser for Africa, told Bloomberg News in September.
A lasting peace would need to be established in the wider area before TechMet or Mercuria could invest in Rubaya’s tantalum resources, the people familiar said. The mine sites themselves have been run since April 2024 by the M23, which has occupied a large swath of eastern Congo.
Conversations between TechMet and the US government about Rubaya and other potential mining assets in Congo have been preliminary, emphasizing the considerable challenges associated with the projects and the conditions that would have to change before progress becomes possible, the people said.
–With assistance from Archie Hunter.
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