Congo pitches new $29 billion iron ore and logistics project

The Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the world’s biggest producers of copper and cobalt, wants to add a $29 billion iron ore project to its mineral portfolio.

The country’s government has created a project called Mines de Fer de la Grande Orientale, or MIFOR, to develop a particularly rich seam of ore in the remote north of the country, Mines Minister Louis Watum told the council of ministers Friday, according to minutes published on the website of the office of the prime minister. The deposit has an estimated 20 billion tons of resources at an average grade of 60%, he said.

The first phase of the project would require the construction of heavy rail and transport on the Congo River to the deep-water port of Banana on the Atlantic Ocean and cost $28.9 billion, Watum said. Initial production capacity would be approximately 50 million tons per year, expandable to 300 million tons, Watum told the council.

“After more than 100 years of mining primarily focused on copper and cobalt, the MIFOR project marks a major strategic shift in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s extractive model,” Watum said, according to the minutes.

The project has already attracted institutional investors, he told the council, which agreed to create an inter-ministerial commission dedicated to the project.

(By Michael J. Kavanagh)