Mercuria JV to market half a million tons of Congo’s copper

Mercuria Energy Trading has started a metals trading joint venture with Democratic Republic of Congo’s Gécamines SA to market copper and cobalt the country gets from equity stakes in local mines.

In addition to large amounts of cobalt, the joint venture could end up marketing over 500,000 tons of copper cathodes annually, Kostas Bintas, head of metals at Mercuria Energy Group Ltd., said in an interview on Friday.

The move was announced as part of US-brokered peace accord between Congo and its neighbor Rwanda. The US International Development Finance Corp. has also signed a letter of intent to discuss taking a financial stake in the joint venture which would see US end users get the right of first refusal on materials it sells.

And it comes as traders are scouring the market for copper to help meet supply dislocations born from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs as well as mining shortfalls. Copper prices on the London Metal Exchange are trading at their highest levels on record and traders have made fortunes shipping units to America for huge premiums to prices in the rest of the world.

Since hiring Bintas from rival firm Trafigura last year, Mercuria has become one of the fastest growing traders in metal markets.

Bintas said that Mercuria has already traded 1.2 million tons of copper cathodes globally this year and that the joint venture should mean it becomes the biggest exporter of copper cathodes out of Africa’s Copperbelt region in 2026. Mercuria also has a similar agreement with Zambia, Africa’s other big producer of the metal.

“I’m a big fan of the JV concept – it’s a smart way to grow fast. Half a million tonnes would take us two years to get this volume otherwise,” he said.

Multiple stakes

The expansion of several key mining projects has seen the DRC grow to become the world’s second biggest producer of copper after Chile. Its national mining firm Gécamines has offtake rights linked to its stakes in copper and cobalt mines run by international companies like Glencore Plc and China’s CMOC Group.

Mercuria will be providing operational and hedging support to the vehicle as well as $1 billion in various forms of financing, according to Bintas.

And the joint venture will help Gécamines’ have a more active commercial role in setting a price for that production and to control where it goes, both companies said in a joint press release.

(By Michael J. Kavanagh)