Cobalt blues: Congolese miners, and China’s role in improving their conditions
- The Democratic Republic of the Congo has the world’s largest reserves of the metal but concerns have been raised about working conditions and child labour
- Chinese companies, which control most of the production of Congolese cobalt, have pledged to help institute responsible mining practices
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, thousands of residents of this resource-rich central African nation, including children, toil and even fight to extract metals like cobalt – an essential component for making lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones, laptops and electric cars.
The southern DRC region of Katanga holds the country’s largest cobalt reserves; thousands of small-scale mining operators, or “artisanal miners”, dig each day for the buried treasure – an extremely risky process, mostly done by hand or rudimentary tools.
Even so, that has not helped improve the living standards of many locals. In addition to the poor pay the artisanal miners get for the metal, processing companies have not invested in the miners’ communities – or the profits the companies generate do not reach them.
Still, these artisanal miners have become key in meeting growing global demand for cobalt after the rush to adopt electric cars in China and Western nations. For instance, Global Times, the Communist Party tabloid, has reported that Chinese electric vehicle battery supplies are facing record demand, with a shortfall possibly reaching 30 per cent to 40 per cent this year, even as China increases its cobalt extraction in the DRC and elsewhere.
Besides its use in electric cars and smartphones, cobalt has become a strategic metal for making alloys for jet and gas turbine blades and magnetic steel. In all, demand for cobalt is projected to surge fourfold by 2030.
