Questions From the Copperbelt
What shut down half of Kolwezi this morning?
Artisanal diggers, not soldiers, for once. Monday saw protests spread across Kasulo, Kanina, Musonoie, Kazembe and the T17 axis, with vehicles stoned on the Kasulo-Luilu road and tyres burned on National Route 39. The diggers are angry about closures at ore-buying comptoirs and control operations that have cut off their only route to market. Their core demand is the long-promised artisanal mining zone, ZEA 786 at Kasulo, where site clearance is running far behind the plan a government official announced back in July. Thousands of diggers relocated from the T17 site are now stuck waiting on a plot that isn't ready.
Why are troops massing in the same town?
Because Kolwezi sits in the province the army is now treating as a front line. General Eddy Kapend, commander of the 22nd military region, used a joint army-police parade at Kolwezi's Manika stadium to put Grand Katanga on alert against Joseph Kabila's new Front pour la refondation de la nation, launched in Goma on 12 October as successor to the Rwanda-linked AFC/M23 coalition. A sensitisation tour is planned through Dilolo, Kalemie, Lubumbashi and Kasumbalesa, the last being the border post that carries copper cathode out to Zambia and the south. Nobody is reporting a closure at Kasumbalesa yet. The fact that it's on the itinerary is the point.
Did the metals desk notice?
Cobalt did. The price fell to 36,815 USD/t, down 6.4% from 39,345, a sharper drop than the copper tape, which eased a more modest 0.6% to 14,495 USD/t on COMEX. Whether that's demand softness or traders pricing in Katanga risk is not yet knowable from one day's print, but it's the kind of move that deserves a second look once this week's numbers land.
What happened to sulphur, and why does it matter here?
It cratered. The China print fell 8.7% to 911 USD/t, from 6,652.33 to 6,076.75 CNY/t. Sulphur is the feedstock for the sulphuric acid that drives copper leaching circuits across the Copperbelt, as well as the Gulf granulation lines that turn it into urea and DAP. Those two finished products sat exactly flat on the day, 457.5 and 802.5 USD/t respectively, so the feedstock move hasn't reached the fertiliser price yet. It usually takes a few weeks to show.
Is there any good news on copper supply?
Two small pieces. Freeport is testing a new chemical leaching reagent later this year aimed at lifting recovery rates, and in Arizona, US buyers are reportedly in advanced offtake talks over Ivanhoe Electric's $1.4bn Santa Cruz project, driven by AI data-centre and grid demand rather than anything happening in Africa. Neither changes a tonne of supply this quarter, but both are markers of where producers think the growth is.
Still ringing
- Antofagasta says the Centinela strike has ended and production held at normal levels throughout.
- In South Kivu, a calm has returned to Kaziba after a week of fighting between the FRN and the army; whether it holds is the open question.
- The Baltic Dry Index added 35 points to 2,546, even as Capesize rates spent the week sliding from their Monday close.