Knowledge · Data Room

The sources themselves, on the table.

This page indexes the data sources behind the DRC artisanal cobalt record: what each one holds, how fresh it runs, and how it can actually be reached. Where a register has no public face, that absence is reported as a finding.

A reference is only as good as the sources it stands on. So the sources are a first-class layer here, not footnotes: every one linked, rated, and checked on a stated date.

Ratings grade what we publish about each source. Strong: reached directly and corroborated. Moderate: verified through indexed copies or secondary corroboration. Single: one thread of evidence, flagged.

Access notes are part of the honesty signature. A source that blocks automated readers, sits behind a paywall, or restricts republication is described as exactly that.

Section 01

DRC registers & regulators

The official record: ministries, regulators and state bodies whose acts define the sector.

Arrêtés, communiqués, mining code texts, operator data and periodic production statistics for the copper-cobalt sector.

Publisher DRC Ministry of MinesFreshness Active: items dated June 2026 on the homepage at last check.Access Open. Some category URLs shift; deep-crawl from the homepage.

The cobalt export-quota regime: suspension, quota decisions (004 and 005 of 2025), forfeiture notices, AVQ certificates.

Publisher ARECOMSFreshness Decisions issued through July 2026 (H1 forfeiture notice, 29 June 2026).Access No official website or public register found at last check. Decisions circulate via DRC press and the IEA policy database (linked here).
CAMI mining cadastre (cami.cd) moderateChecked 2026-07

Mining titles and the granted mining domain, on the FlexiCadastre/Landfolio platform, with public map viewers. Whether ZEA polygons are a public layer is unconfirmed.

Publisher Cadastre Minier (CAMI)Freshness Portal live at last check; data-refresh cadence not published.Access Open map viewers; the licences portal answered inconsistently to automated checks.
SAEMAPE (saemape.cd) moderateChecked 2026-07

Artisanal-mining oversight: ZEA creation arrêtés, cooperative and site counts, quarterly ASM production references.

Publisher SAEMAPEFreshness Active: June 2026 items, including 33 new ZEA arrêtés for Lualaba.Access Open, but headline counters render in the browser only; no downloadable site dataset found.
EGC (egcobalt.cd) singleChecked 2026-07

The state ASM-cobalt monopsony: responsible-sourcing standard, purchase and commercialisation pages, site news (Kasulo; first traceable production Nov 2025).

Publisher Entreprise Générale du CobaltFreshness Site maintained; volumes remain self-reported (see the quarantine on the Numbers page).Access Blocks automated fetchers (403); read it in a browser.
Journal Officiel de la RDC singleChecked 2026-07

Promulgated laws and décrets, the test this hub applies before a draft décret is called "in force" (rule P7).

Publisher Présidence de la RépubliqueFreshness Official portal; returned a server error at last automated check.Access Free portal per two independent references; availability intermittent. leganet.cd mirrors older texts.
Section 02

Production & trade statistics

Who counts the tonnes: national bulletins, international estimates and trade data, with their disagreements.

National production and export bulletins by commodity, 2003 through Q1 2026, including the full-year 2025 bulletin. The DRC-side statistical anchor.

Publisher CTCPM, Ministère des MinesFreshness Quarterly cadence; 2025 full-year PDF posted May 2026.Access Open PDF downloads, no registration.

Annual DRC and world mine production, reserves and average LME-cash prices; editions 1996 to 2026 reconstruct a full series. Not ASM-disaggregated.

Publisher US Geological SurveyFreshness Annual, each February; MCS 2026 read in full this session.Access Open PDF and data downloads.
ITIE-RDC reports (itierdc.net) moderateChecked 2026-07

Revenue reconciliation with production and export context by company and mineral; the 2023 report was published December 2025.

Publisher ITIE-RDC / EITIFreshness Roughly a two-year lag between fiscal year and publication.Access Own site blocks automated fetchers (403); reports mirror on eiti.org.
UN Comtrade (comtradeplus.un.org) moderateChecked 2026-07

DRC cobalt trade lines (HS 8105, 2605 and related). Mirror asymmetries between DRC-reported and partner-reported flows are significant; use partner mirrors and say which side a figure comes from.

Publisher United NationsFreshness Continuously updated as reporters file.Access Open queries, free registration for bulk.
Section 03

Pricing

The price series that move the sector, and the licensing lines around republishing them.

LME cobalt strongChecked 2026-07

The exchange cash and 3-month cobalt contract (99.8% metal), the series behind this hub's price card.

Publisher London Metal ExchangeFreshness Daily; next-day delayed data runs fee-free.Access Republishing LME data (charts included) requires a distribution licence even on the free tier, so this hub cites levels with attribution and links out instead of embedding a feed.
Fastmarkets cobalt assessments strongChecked 2026-07

Standard-grade cobalt (Rotterdam) and the cobalt hydroxide payable indicator, the price that actually moves DRC output. Methodology public; prices paywalled.

Publisher FastmarketsFreshness Daily assessments.Access Paywalled series; figures surface in its open insight articles.

Annual Cobalt Market Report (2025 edition, May 2026) and free charts: supply, demand, prices, and the ASM-share estimate this hub quotes.

Publisher Cobalt Institute (with Benchmark Mineral Intelligence)Freshness Annual report plus quarterly updates.Access Free PDF downloads, no registration.

China-side cobalt metal, sulfate and MHP payable series, the demand-side counterpart to the Rotterdam assessments.

Publisher SMMFreshness Daily.Access Current prices free with registration; history paid.
Section 04

Mine sites & geodata

Who has actually mapped the belt, what is open, and what is often misattributed.

Remote-sensing geodata distinguishing artisanal, small-scale and large-scale mining extent across the DRC-Zambia Copperbelt, 2016-2023 imagery, built on cadastre data. The most directly cobalt-relevant open geodata found.

Publisher US Geological SurveyFreshness Published March 2024; imagery through 2023.Access Open download via DOI.

The field census of the belt: 102 artisanal copper-cobalt mines registered in Haut-Katanga and Lualaba, 58 with detailed socio-economic data. Still the reference site survey.

Publisher BGR, with the Carter Center and SAEMAPEFreshness Fieldwork April-May 2019; a 2021 trading-networks follow-up exists.Access Open PDF (EN and FR), mirrored on Delve.
IPIS open data (eastern DRC) strongChecked 2026-07

The open ASM webmap and geodata (2,800+ sites, ODC-BY licence) cover eastern DRC 3T and gold, NOT the copper-cobalt belt. IPIS's cobalt footprint is the Kufatilia incident monitor in Lualaba (since 2023) and due-diligence analyses.

Publisher IPIS (Antwerp)Freshness Open-data page mid-migration at last check; site-visit data to 2023.Access Open (CSV, GeoJSON, WFS), ODC-BY attribution.

Industrial projects, artisanal sites (active/inactive) and processors across Haut-Katanga and Lualaba, built from CAMI, BGR, CTCPM and its own 2023 ground survey.

Publisher China Global South ProjectFreshness Reflects 2022 production data and Jan-May 2023 field checks.Access Open viewer; reuse terms for the underlying geodata unconfirmed.
Section 05

Field studies & local prices

The scarce ground-level evidence: what diggers are paid, and the surveys behind the people figures.

Field survey at Kamilombe and Mutoshi with a photographed buying-station price board (Mutoshi, June 2023) and daily-income readings: the rare public evidence of what diggers are actually paid.

Publisher AFREWATCH, with IIED supportFreshness Published March 2024, fieldwork June 2023.Access Open PDF, CC BY-NC-ND: republishable with attribution.

The 2021 market and livelihoods analysis behind several of this hub's people-side readings (miner counts, media-reported fatalities floor).

Publisher World BankFreshness Published June 2021; a snapshot of the cobalt-rush years.Access Open PDF.
Delve ASM data platform moderateChecked 2026-07

Global ASM data platform holding the DRC country profile, the BGR belt survey and the Mutoshi pilot case study in one place.

Publisher World Bank and PactFreshness DRC materials mostly 2019-2020 vintage at last check.Access Open PDFs; the site itself blocks automated fetchers.
Section 06

Transparency & due diligence

The reporting frameworks that put sector data on the public record.

EITI ASM copper-cobalt reporting moderateChecked 2026-07

Dedicated artisanal copper-cobalt-zinc studies: the March 2023 value-chain report (open PDF) and a November 2025 ASM copper-cobalt update.

Publisher EITI / ITIE-RDCFreshness Latest ASM-specific document November 2025.Access Open PDFs on eiti.org.

DRC cobalt ore listed for child labour since 2009; the 2024 edition added a forced-labour designation. Updated biennially.

Publisher US Department of Labor, ILABFreshness 2024 edition current at last check.Access Open, though dol.gov blocks automated fetchers; secondary confirmations used.
Contribute

Know a source this room is missing?

A register, a dataset, a price series, a field study: if it belongs on this table, tell the Hub through the contribute page and it enters the next verification pass.