A dated, source-rated feed of developments in artisanal cobalt and DRC mineral governance. Each entry is rated for how well it is corroborated.
At a 10 September Kinshasa workshop, the anti-corruption agency APLC and NRGI presented a diagnostic covering mining licences, state mining companies, and environmental and social governance. Mines.cd reports that the final text is to be released publicly by the participating bodies; its findings are not yet treated here as a published report.
Fastmarkets reports that EGC exported 3,531 t of contained cobalt in 9,948 t of hydroxide in H1 2026, citing DRC data it reviewed. An EGC adviser separately says it handled about 2,820 t of traceable artisanal cobalt in the half-year. These are different measures and are not added together.
Mines.cd compares the CTCPM’s 100,015 t 2025 administrative tally with higher provisional and international estimates. The divergence remains unresolved; the hub shows each source’s reading separately.
A joint ministerial ordinance signed 29 June 2026 by the Mines, Foreign Trade and National Economy ministers immediately prohibits raw exports of copper and cobalt concentrates, requiring local transformation before export. The ordinance allows derogations of up to one year for strategic projects and a three-month transition for a new by-product tax regime; Kamoa-Kakula reportedly retains some concentrate-export authorisation. Q1-2026 exports cited alongside the measure: about 697,000 t copper cathodes, 54,000 t copper concentrates and 52,000 t cobalt hydroxides. Reported by a single sector-press source (mines.cd).
A Congolese scientist publicly challenged industry estimates that Congolese cobalt hydroxides carry 2,000 to 5,000 tonnes of uranium content, calling for independent validation of the figures. Single-source reporting (mines.cd).
Signed at DRC Mining Week in Lubumbashi, the agreement covers artisanal-mining formalisation in Lualaba and Haut-Katanga, including income diversification and helping cooperatives access finance. The alliance’s announcement of 14 July is the only source.
On 14 July SAEMAPE’s Director General launched overburden removal and site preparation at artisanal exploitation zone ZEA 786 of Kasulo, in Lualaba, with the Governor present. SAEMAPE’s own account is the only source.
A late-June ARECOMS notice operationalised the forfeiture flagged in June: the measure took effect on 1 July 2026, and only cobalt entered into the customs system by 5 July 2026 could still ship under first-half quotas, with unshipped volumes reverting to the strategic quota and no carry-forward. ARECOMS restated it can revoke export rights for missed deadlines, illegal quota transfers or processing of unauthorised material.
The strategic-reserve decree (April), the strategic-minerals-list decree raising the royalty to 10% (May) and the CEEC certification decree (March) were each adopted only as drafts in the Council of Ministers. By early July none had been signed by the Prime Minister or published in the Journal Officiel, so they are not yet in force; the 10% royalty in particular applies only on the Prime Minister’s signature. Congolese press confirms the drafts, but no gazetted text was located.
Congo’s Chamber of Mines told ARECOMS exporters could not register export declarations on the customs platform from 1 July 2026, after ARECOMS failed to send customs the notification needed to keep processing quota-linked exports. Producers, including a CMOC request for a one-month extension, asked ARECOMS to fix the platform and appealed to the Prime Minister; a later headline reports exports resuming and quotas upheld, but the resolution is not confirmed.
Under a memorandum announced on 10 June, SLR Better Mining refers the child-labour cases its monitors identify to the Kolwezi-based Action Hub for follow-up and remediation. The Centre for Child Rights and Business, which co-signed, is the only source.
Signed in Lubumbashi on 15 June by SAEMAPE’s Director General and GIZ, the memorandum covers formalising artisanal mining, training miners and supporting cooperatives, “dans le cadre du projet Cobalt Development” in SAEMAPE’s words. SAEMAPE is the only source.
Fastmarkets reported that only about a third to a half of Q4-2025 and Q1-2026 cobalt-hydroxide allocations were physically shipped, with roughly 7,800 t clearing customs between December 2025 and end-February 2026, citing paperwork, logistics and a bridge collapse on a key route. Single-source market intelligence, attributed to unnamed DRC operators; it aligns with Glencore’s reported 39% year-on-year cobalt drop but is not independently confirmed by customs data.
The Sharjah-based Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi Humanitarian Foundation announced funding for a UNICEF child-labour project in the Kambove health zone, aiming to withdraw more than 200 children from artisanal sites, provide cash transfers to 100 families and open schooling and vocational pathways. It builds on UNICEF’s TPS+ model, which reports 1,015 children removed from mines in 2024.
In a late-June notice, ARECOMS said any January–June 2026 export quota left unused by 30 June is forfeited and reassigned to its strategic quota, with no carry-forward, and warned it can withdraw quotas from companies that fail to ship or that handle unauthorised third-party material.
The 21st edition (17–19 June, Pullman Grand Karavia) drew 300+ exhibitors; Mines Minister Louis Watum said the DRC must move from extraction to “transformation, innovation and value creation,” and provincial authorities announced an EV-battery plant for the DRC–Zambia special economic zone.
A joint communiqué on October-2025 sampling in Kolwezi, Pierre Muteba 2 and Fungurume reports fine-particle readings up to six times WHO guidelines and heavy metals (cobalt, arsenic, lead, uranium) in water and sediments, and criticises slow state remediation.
The mayor of Dilala commune voiced concern over the persistent presence of children on the Kamilombe remblai, a high-risk artisanal zone on Kolwezi’s edge (also the Fair Cobalt Alliance’s flagship site). Single-source; no FCA or EGC response documented.
The state artisanal-mining service presented to Governor Fifi Masuka the ministerial orders establishing 33 new Zones d’Exploitation Artisanale, part of the post-suspension effort to give creuseurs legal space to work.
The DRC mining-statistics service’s 2025 table records 100,015 t. Its administrative tally differs sharply from the USGS 2025 mine-production estimate of 230,000 t; the figures are presented separately pending reconciliation of coverage and method. The CTCPM file was published on 15 May 2026.
A tripartite MoU frames long-term supply of Congolese cobalt hydroxide to a planned US refinery; on the DRC side it commits the parties to explore building local refining capacity and to train EGC teams.
The Council of Ministers adopted a draft decree adding lithium, tantalum, niobium, tungsten, uranium and rare earths to the strategic-substances list and lifting their royalty from 3.5% to the 10% rate cobalt already carries.
China’s MMG said its 360 t Kinsevere quota (against roughly 6,000 t capacity) makes cobalt economically unviable and asked for policy clarity, while CMOC kept producing near capacity and accumulated unexportable cobalt inside the DRC.
Its first cargo under the quota regime had cleared in December 2025; on a combined 2025–26 quota of ~22,800 t, Q1 2026 cobalt output fell 39% year on year as Glencore prioritised copper and stockpiled over-quota cobalt in-country.