Products Copper, Cobalt Company Katanga Mining | Website www.katangamining.com Province Katanga Province | |
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Country Democratic Republic of the Congo | ||
Tilwezembe is an open-pit copper and cobalt mine in Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo operated by Katanga Mining, a subsidiary of Glencore.
The mine covers an area of 7.64 square kilometres (2.95 sq mi). It has an indicated nine million tones of ore with 1.89% copper and 0.60% cobalt. Mining in the Tilwezambe pit has taken place off and on since 1999. At first this was done by the state-owned Gécamines using contract labor. For a while, artesanal miners took over.
In March 2004, Dan Gertler International and Beny Steinmetz Global founded a firm named Global Enterprises Corporate (GEC). In May 2004 GEC signed a preliminary agreement with Gécamines, finalized in September that year, to rehabilitate and operate the Kananga and Tilwezembe mines. The deal was ratified by presidential decree. In January 2008 Katanga Mining finalized acquisition of Nikanor PLC for $452m. A joint venture of Katanga Mining (75%) and Gécamines (25%) began mining in 2007. In November 2008, Katanga Mining said they had temporarily suspended mining and ore processing at the Kolwezi concentrator due to the depressed price of cobalt.