After more than a century of industrial copper and cobalt mining, the Democratic Republic of Congo has announced a major iron ore project.

The Grande Orientale Iron Ore Project (Mifor), billed as a “national economic architecture project,” aims to structure— for the first time at industrial scale —the development of iron ore resources estimated at 15 to 20 billion tonnes, with an average grade above 60 percent.

Patrick Muyaya, government spokesperson, said the DRC intends to position itself among the world’s leading holders of large, undeveloped iron ore resources.

The largest producers are Australia, China and Brazil, followed by India, Russia and Ukraine.

In Africa, major producers include South Africa, Egypt, Mauritania, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Guinea, Cameroon and Liberia. The DRC plans an initial production capacity of about 50 million tonnes a year, expandable to 300 million tonnes.

”The government says the project will span extraction, gradual processing of a strategic mineral, development of sovereign infrastructure, sustainable revenue generation and, ultimately, macroeconomic stability and balanced territorial development. The mine will serve as a financial instrument to create long-term structural assets, Mr Muyaya said.

Minutes of a Council of Ministers meeting state: “Consolidated studies show for an initial investment estimated at $28.9 billion for the first phase, the economic model projected over 25 years shows cumulative revenue of more than $679 billion, a net cash flow surplus of nearly $308 billion, a negative net present value and a high internal rate of return, reflecting the robustness of the project under conservative market assumptions.”Iron ore currently trades at about $108 a tonne on international markets, while stainless steel sells for just over $900 a tonne. Generally, a tonne of steel is worth 40 to 50 times more than iron ore.

To accelerate implementation, the government has set up an interministerial commission to oversee strategic management, institutional coordination and phased development in line with sovereign guidelines.

The government said Mifor has already “attracted the interest of international institutional investors with recognised capabilities in structuring and financing macroeconomic projects.”Iron ore has been one of the better-performing mining commodities, weathering several market shocks, including disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to some mining experts, “it is difficult to imagine that countries can develop without controlling their own steel production, a basic material in many industrial sectors, particularly construction, a key sector on a continent whose population continues to grow rapidly and whose cities are expanding by more than five percent per year.”

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