Kamoa-Kakula smelter ramp-up to offset DRC’s copper concentrate export ban: analysts

The impact of the Democratic Republic of Congo's ban on copper concentrate exports will depend on the transition period and waiver provisions, but could remain limited anyway thanks to the country's new smelter that will require significant volumes of copper concentrate once it reaches its nameplate capacity, analysts said Aug. 6 in response to the move.

The DRC Ministry of Mines confirmed Aug. 6 on its LinkedIn page that it would ban exports of copper and cobalt concentrates to increase domestic processing, while allowing the ministry to grant one-year derogations for certain less-processed products under defined strategic, technical or economic conditions.

The immediate impact of the trade measure on China, the world's largest importer and consumer of copper concentrate, may be limited, as DRC-origin concentrate accounts for only a small share of China's imports, Chinese market participants said.

In January-June, China imported 270,757 metric tons from the DRC, 30.8% lower year over year and accounting for only 1.9% of the country's total copper concentrate imports in the period, according to the General Administration of Customs.

The longer-term impact of the measure will largely depend on the transition period and waiver provisions set out in the forthcoming implementation regulations, a China-based analyst told Platts.

Should the DRC maintain its existing waiver regime and allow exemptions for smelting projects under development, the export ban's effective impact is expected to remain limited. Also, the ramp-up of Kamoa-Kakula's smelting capacity could partially offset the policy risk, according to the analyst.

New smelter

Natalie Scott-Gray, senior metals analyst at financial services company StoneX, also suggested in an Aug. 6 note that if the DRC's ban on copper concentrate comes with a few months' grace period, it could make only a small difference to exports, provided the ramp-up of the new smelter is completed on schedule.

Scott-Gray noted that copper concentrate represents the final product of only one of the DRC's top eight copper-producing assets, the Kamoa-Kakula Complex.

Largely a joint venture between Canada's Ivanhoe Mines, China's Zijin Mining Group and the DRC government, the complex, comprising several mines, three concentrators and, since late 2025, a 500,000-mt/year direct-to-blister copper smelter, milled over 14 million mt of ore in 2025, producing 388,838 mt of copper in concentrate, according to its website.

"Kamoa-Kakula accounted for 64% of all DRC concentrate output in 2025. Therefore, Kamoa's export waiver status is the single biggest swing factor for how much DRC concentrate actually reaches the export market, since every other major producer ships refined cathode instead," Scott-Gray said.

Of the total concentrate produced, DRC smelts only 29% of the volume, which means that the vast majority of concentrate output is available to export, but the ratio is now set to change as Kamoa-Kakula's 500,000-mt/year smelter is expected to reach steady-state operation at full capacity by year-end, according to the StoneX analyst.

The Kamoa-Kakula smelter produced its first copper anodes in January 2026 and is targeting a total output of 290,000-330,000 mt this year.

A ban on the export of unbeneficiated concentrate has been in place and enforced in the DRC for close to 10 years, Ivanhoe Mines, a 39.6% stakeholder in Kamoa-Kakula Copper, said in an Aug. 6 statement.

The company added that since the start of production at Kamoa-Kakula in 2021, multiple derogations have been issued for the complex, allowing the export of its copper concentrate, but now all copper concentrate produced by Kamoa-Kakula is smelted at the on-site smelter or at the Lualaba Copper Smelter in Kolwezi.

Platts assessed the clean copper concentrate price at $3,895/mt CIF China on Aug. 6. The assessment has increased by 16% from its $3,358/mt level at the start of the year and is now the highest since Platts launched the assessment in February 2021.