NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) – Chinese restrictions on exports of rare metals, including germanium products, will drive up the price of the metal which will benefit the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the company said on Wednesday. Congolese public mining company Gécamines.
China on Monday announced restrictions on exports of certain gallium and germanium products, citing national security concerns, raising concern among global companies in the semiconductor and defense sectors.
STL, a subsidiary of Gécamines, is developing a production unit for metals, including germanium, used for semiconductors.
“We will produce germanium (to replace the metal) which will no longer be available for the market,” Gecamines chairman Robert Lukama told Reuters.
The DRC, the world’s largest supplier of cobalt and Africa’s top copper producer, plans to explore the minerals needed to meet the global transition to low-carbon production, including lithium, tin and rare earths.
Chinese restrictions on the export of germanium and gallium will come into effect on August 1. They could disrupt global supply chains, while China controls most of the production of these metals used in particular in electronic chips.
Byrstar, an international minerals and metals producer, told Reuters it was considering germanium and gallium mining projects in Australia, Europe and the United States.
North America’s largest germanium producer, Canada’s Teck Resources, told Reuters the restrictions would have no impact on its germanium production.
(Felix Njini and Clara Denina report; French version Victor Goury-Laffont, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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