Alarming Discovery: Uranium Taints DR Congo Cobalt Shipments to China

A collaborative investigation by Lighthouse Reports, The Financial Times, and Le Monde has brought to light the potential export of uranium from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), tracing its origins back to a confidential memo from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) obtained in 2024. The investigation points to Chinese mining group CMOC, which operates a significant mining site in Katanga, as a key entity in this alleged activity, though CMOC vehemently disputes the findings.

The probe began after Lighthouse Reports acquired a previously undisclosed internal IAEA memo from 2009. This document cited credible information indicating that uranium was present in "significant quantities" within most cobalt ores extracted from Katanga, located in the southeastern DRC, and was "effectively exported as a cobalt by-product."

The Katanga region, a vital part of Central Africa's Copperbelt, has increasingly focused on cobalt extraction due to growing global demand for the metal, which is crucial for lithium-ion batteries and aerospace alloys. However, the region's mines have a long-standing history of containing uranium. Notably, a substantial portion of the uranium utilized in the Manhattan Project, responsible for developing the first atomic bombs, originated from Katanga's Shinkolobwe mine. Following the DRC's independence, this mine was closed and subsequently designated an exclusion zone. In 2004, then-President Joseph Kabila declared the area a prohibited mining zone, citing national security, public safety, and the presence of uranium, which Congolese law classifies as a reserved mineral substance.

Tomas Statius, a Lighthouse Reports journalist and co-author of the investigation, highlighted to RFI that while other by-products in Congolese mining exports, particularly cobalt, are effectively monitored by Congolese authorities, uranium remains an exception. Mining professionals confirm that uranium, copper, and cobalt frequently occur together throughout the Congolese and Zambian Copperbelt, describing it as a "constant feature" not limited to specific locations.

Steve Muanza, head of the DRC's nuclear energy agency, informed The Financial Times that it was "technically possible" and even "probable" for Chinese companies to be extracting uranium from cobalt ore exported from the country, despite a lack of direct evidence. He also mentioned his agency's request for funding to install radioactivity detectors on trucks transporting materials from the DRC into Zambia.

To quantify the potential uranium exports, Lighthouse Reports collaborated with Sébastien Philippe, then a senior researcher at Princeton University, and geologist Ryan Manzuk. Their calculations leveraged prior analyses of uranium concentrations in Katanga ores, mine production data, and geological samples housed at the AfricaMuseum in Belgium. A paper by Manzuk and Philippe, published on July 30 in Nature Communications, estimated that between 2,000 and 5,000 tonnes of uranium were exported from the DRC to China within cobalt hydroxide shipments between 2000 and 2024. Even the lower estimate, according to the researchers, would be sufficient to fuel a one-gigawatt nuclear reactor for at least a decade. The investigation, however, did not ascertain whether the uranium was subsequently extracted or utilized in China.

The most extensively documented site in the investigation was Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM), one of the DRC's largest cobalt producers. TFM was initially owned by the US company Freeport-McMoRan before its acquisition by Chinese group CMOC in 2016. Internal company documents reviewed by the investigators recorded uranium-rich cobalt samples, with one peak concentration reaching 1,100 parts per million in December 2016 – approximately 15 times the export limit cited by the investigation. Further documentation indicated that significant uranium concentrations persisted in cobalt produced at TFM in June 2021. Statius emphasized that an "established, known method for removing uranium from cobalt exports" was available but had not been employed. He added, "We have been unable to determine whether CMOC intends to retain the uranium for economic or strategic reasons." Doug Alexander, a former senior metallurgist at Eurasian Resources Group, suggested the existence of two supply chains in the region: one addressing contamination when detected, and another shipping lower-quality, impurity-laden products directly to China.

CMOC has categorically rejected the investigation's findings. The company asserts that all cobalt hydroxide currently produced by TFM complies with Congolese regulations and international customer standards, with no recorded breaches of permitted limits or trade rules. CMOC stated it was unaware of the source of the investigation's historical data and maintained that uranium levels were below the relevant threshold, rendering a dedicated removal process unnecessary. Furthermore, CMOC denied conducting uranium separation or extraction in either the DRC or China. It also challenged the use of 75 parts per million as a universal limit, referencing alternative thresholds of up to 100 parts per million. Freeport-McMoRan did not respond to requests for comment, while the investigators firmly stood by their findings. Statius affirmed, "Our investigation is based on internal documents from the mine and its owners, spanning nearly a decade, that reveal both the contamination and attempts by certain metallurgical engineers to address the issue. It also draws on a peer-reviewed scientific paper published in one of the world's top journals." The investigation also uncovered that a refinery in Kokkola, Finland, had received Congolese material containing uranium.