DRC’s State-owned Gecamines First Germanium Shipment to Europe

Highlights

• Gécamines, DRC’s state miner, begins shipping germanium concentrates from Big Hill tailings to Europe for advanced processing.
• The initiative aims to establish DRC as a global hub for strategic metals, particularly germanium used in high-tech applications.
• This development highlights DRC’s efforts to add value to its mining waste and reduce raw material exports.

Earlier this month the Democratic Republic of Congo's state miner Gecamines disclosed it would ship for the first time germanium concentrates to Europe from its Big Hill tailings dump.

Germanium (Ge), a chemical element between silicon and tin in Group 14 (IVa) of the periodic table, a silvery-gray metalloid, intermediate in properties between the metals and the nonmetals. Germanium oxide has a high index of refraction and dispersion. This makes it suitable for use in wide-angle camera lenses and objective lenses for microscopes. This is now the major use for this element.

The company reports in a press entry that the concentrates, made in a new plant in the mining hub of Lubumbashi, will be shipped to the Belgium facility of Umicore (opens in a new tab) (UMI.BR) for advanced processing as well as use in value-added,  high-tech applications reports the company in its media release (opens in a new tab).  Gecamines chairman Robert Lukama (opens in a new tab) said "This inaugural shipment of germanium confirms our ambition, nurtured over several years, to make Congo a global hub for strategic metals.”

The Company

Gécamines (opens in a new tab) (Générale des Carrières et des Mines) is a state-owned mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), known as one of the country's largest and historically most significant mining entities. Established in 1966, Gécamines has been central to the DRC's mining industry, especially for copper and cobalt—key minerals for electronics, renewable energy, and battery manufacturing.

The Big Hill tailings site, located in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is a significant repository of mining waste accumulated over decades from various mining activities in the region. These tailings contain valuable metals, including germanium, a critical element used in high-tech applications such as semiconductors and fiber-optic systems.

In recent developments, Gécamines, through its subsidiary Société de Traitement des Lixiviats (STL), inked a deal with Umicore, a global materials technology and recycling group, to process and export germanium concentrates from the Big Hill tailings. This collaboration aims to enhance the value derived from the DRC's mining waste by establishing a local processing facility, thereby reducing the need to export raw materials for overseas processing. The first shipment of these germanium concentrates to Europe was announced in October 2024, marking a significant milestone in the DRC's efforts to become a global hub for strategic metals.

Environmental issues have plagued DRC, from deforestation and poaching, which threatens wildlife populations, to water pollution and mining.

The economy of the second largest country in Africa relies heavily on mining. The Congo is the world's largest producer of cobalt ore, and a major producer of copper and industrial diamonds. The Congo has more than 30% of the world's diamond reserves., mostly in the form of small, industrial diamonds.