The Manono-Kitolo mine is a former tin and

coltan Coltan (short for columbite–tantalites and known industrially as tantalite) is a dull black metallic ore from which the elements niobium and tantalum are extracted. The niobium-dominant mineral in coltan is columbite (after niobium's original A ...

mine, which also contains one of the largest

lithium Lithium (from el, λίθος, lithos, lit=stone) is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the least dense solid el ...

reserves 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 ...

. The mine is located in southern

Tanganyika Province Tanganyika is one of the 21 new provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo created in the 2015 repartitioning. Tanganyika, Haut-Katanga, Haut-Lomami and Lualaba provinces are the result of the splitting up of the former Katanga provinc ...

. The Manono-Kitolo mine has reserves amounting to 120 million tonnes of

ore grading 0.6%

thus resulting 0.72 million tonnes of

History

Original mine

The mine was run by Géomines from 1915 to the mid 1980s, producing 140,000 tons of

cassiterite Cassiterite is a tin oxide mineral, SnO2. It is generally opaque, but it is translucent in thin crystals. Its luster and multiple crystal faces produce a desirable gem. Cassiterite was the chief tin ore throughout ancient history and remains t ...

(

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

) and 10,000 tons of

columbite Columbite, also called niobite, niobite-tantalite and columbate [], is a black mineral group that is an ore of niobium. It has a submetallic Lustre (mineralogy), luster and a high density and is a niobate of iron and manganese. This mineral group w ...

tantalite The mineral group tantalite Fe,_manganese.html"_;"title="iron.html"_;"title="iron">Fe,_manganese">Mn)Tantalum">Ta2oxygen.html" ;"title="manganese">Mn)Tantalum.html" ;"title="iron">Fe,_manganese.html" ;"title="iron.html" ;"title="iron">Fe, manga ...

(

). Since the mine's closure, companies have focused on the large lithium reserves at the site.

Lithium project

In 2018 studies reported a significant high-grade lithium deposit, estimated to have the potential of 1.5 billion tons of lithium

spodumene Spodumene is a pyroxene mineral consisting of lithium aluminium inosilicate, Li Al( Si O3)2, and is a source of lithium. It occurs as colorless to yellowish, purplish, or lilac kunzite (see below), yellowish-green or emerald-green hiddenite, pri ...

hard rock situated in Manono in central DRC. AVZ Minerals, an Australian company, is developing the Manono lithium and tin project and claims to own (75%) of a joint venture with the '' Congolaise d'Exploitation Minière'' (25%) (Cominiere, a State-owned enterprise). The project is known to be the largest lithium

hard rock deposit in the world, larger than the Greenbushes spodumene hard rock deposit in Western Australia. In 2021, AVZ agreed to sell a 24% stake in the venture to the Chinese battery manufacturer

CATL Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (), abbreviated as CATL, is a Chinese battery manufacturer and technology company founded in 2011 that specializes in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage s ...

for $240 million. AVZ's acquisition of 15% of the project in August 2021 has been disputed by the company

Zijin Mining Zijin Mining Group Co., Limited is a multi-national mining company headquartered in Mainland China. Background Zijin is a Shanghai Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange listed mining company principally engaged in the prospecting, explor ...

in the

International Court of Arbitration ICC International Court of Arbitration is an institution for the resolution of international commercial disputes. It operates under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce and consists of more than 100 arbitrators from roughly 90 cou ...

. Zijin points to a Congolese court order that blocked the deal's payments. In January 2023, the DRC mining ministry revoked AVZ's mining license, converting it back to a research permit. During the dispute, Zijin tried to have the northern portion of the license reassigned to them, and offered to let Cominiere keep a $34 million payment if AVZ could be excluded from the mine's ownership.

Manono tailings project

In addition to the new lithium project, as of 2022, the Canada-based ''Tantalex Resources Corporation'' was seeking to raise funds to reprocess

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...

from the historical Manono mine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Manono-Kitolo Mine Lithium mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo