The Kapulo mine is a cassiterite mine and a planned copper mine in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. It is located near a village of the same name. In 2007 one of the two remaining full

FARDC The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: Forces armées de la république démocratique du Congo ARDC is the state organisation responsible for defending the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The FARDC was rebuilt pat ...

brigades in Katanga was stationed in

Pweto Territory Pweto Territory is a territory in the Haut-Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The headquarters are in the town of Pweto. Geography Pweto is part of Haut-Katanga Province. It lies to the west and north of Lake Mweru o ...

. This brigade, the 62nd, was illegally exploiting the Cassiterite mine in Kapulo. The ore is exported through the Musosa,

Moba Territory Moba Territory is a territory in the Tanganyika Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The administrative center is Moba port. The territory has an estimated area of and a population of almost 610,000. Geography and climate The west ...

border crossing into Zambia, bypassing customs posts. The Australian mining company Mawson West acquired the rights to a copper mine in the area from Anvil Mining in May 2010. The ore deposit is on the eastern edge the Katanga sedimentary basin, and is north of the main copper belt in the Kundelungu Plateau zone. There are two ore zones, Shaba and Safari, separated by the long Kapulo fault. In July 2011, Mawson West announced that a feasibility study for an open cut copper mine at Kapulo had given positive results. The find was valued at $141 million. Basic reserves are estimated at 200,000 tonnes of copper metal and 1.8 million ounces silver. Assuming construction started immediately, a processing plant could start operations in November 2012. There could be further potential underground and elsewhere along the Kapulo fault. Infrastructure would include plant and buildings at the mine, a water dam and tailings storage facility. The company would upgrade the road from

Pweto Pweto is a town in the Haut-Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It is the administrative center of Pweto Territory. The town was the scene of a decisive battle in December 2000 during the Second Congo War which resulted ...

to improve access to the Pweto airstrip, which is 45 minutes by road away from the mine. Mining was begun at Kapulo in 2015, but suspended in 2016, due to low copper prices. Facing financial difficulties, Mawson West, along with the Kapulo mine, was acquired by a subsidiary of

Trafigura Trafigura Group Pte. Ltd. is a Singaporean-based Swiss multinational commodity trading company founded in 1993 that trades in base metals and energy. It is the world's largest private metals trader and second-largest oil trader having built or ...

in 2016.

References

Mining in Haut-Katanga Province Copper mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo {{DRCongo-geo-stub

See also

References