12 December 2017
Eurasian Resources Group’s ethical and sustainable cobalt extraction operations in the DRC came under the spotlight during a recent webinar hosted by the organisers of the annual African Mining Indaba ahead of the February 2018 event.
Tony Southgate, the Group’s Head of Strategic Cobalt Marketing, joined a panel of leading industry representatives and commentators to discuss trends and answer questions from journalists. He outlined the production and market forces that pointed to the DRC continues to be the world’s leading source of cobalt, a commodity now in high demand due to recent growth in the electric vehicle market.
“This means there will be a growing focus on sustainable sourcing of cobalt. Large-scale miners, like ERG, adhere to the highest standards but there is a still sizeable amount of the cobalt from the DRC still derives from artisanal mining and some of that involves children,” Tony said. “We at ERG welcome the recent scrutiny of this supply chain. Our flagship project, Metalkol RTR in Kolwezi, aims to be the highest quality producer of cobalt units out of DRC in terms of the sustainable and ethical origin of the material.”
He pointed out that artisanal mining remained a significant source of income for many in the DRC. “We need to eliminate abuses of labour and child labour in that to allow these people to earn money and, hopefully, introduce a more rigorous system that allows them to see much better value out of the work that they do.”
ERG sponsors school teachers and provides free schooling for children to help take them out of the artisanal mining system. It’ll be a combination of factors that solves this: investment from mining companies on the ground, government intervention and also increased scrutiny of the supply chain.
Read the full article “Dollars make their way to projects that sustainably source material” in the Mining Journal.