DRC ships its first lithium exports as Zijin's Manono project starts up

The Democratic Republic of Congo became a lithium producer for the first time in its history after the country's Centre d'Expertise, d'Evaluation et de Certification certified the first export batch of lithium products from the Manono project on 22 July 2026. The certification cleared the way for the first shipment of Congolese lithium sulphate, which moved out through the port of Kalemie on Lake Tanganyika.

A large, high-grade deposit

Manono, in Tanganyika province in the DRC's south-east, is one of the world's largest known high-grade, undeveloped hard-rock lithium deposits suited to large-scale open-pit mining, with a resource the operators put at 6.5 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent. The processing plant built to treat the ore is designed to handle 500,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate a year, producing roughly 95,170 tonnes of lithium sulphate annually once fully ramped up. The project is controlled by Jinxiang Lithium, the overseas arm of China's Zijin Mining Group, which holds 54.9% through a joint venture with DRC state miner Cominiere, which holds 35.1%, alongside a 10% government stake.

Why it matters

Manono's start-up adds a major new hard-rock lithium source outside the traditional producing regions of Australia and China, at a time when global battery manufacturers are seeking to diversify supply chains. It also arrives amid an unresolved ownership dispute: Australian junior AVZ Minerals, which led early exploration at Manono after acquiring a 60% stake in 2016, had its licence revoked by the DRC government in 2023 and has pursued international arbitration against Cominiere ever since, winning a partial procedural ruling in 2024 but losing effective control of the project to the Zijin-Cominiere partnership. In a further twist, AVZ agreed in May 2025 to sell its remaining interests to US-backed explorer KoBold Metals, which has since begun a roughly $50 million exploration campaign in the wider Manono area.

What happens next

With certification secured, the near-term test for Zijin and Cominiere is ramping shipments up toward the plant's full nameplate capacity while the AVZ-KoBold dispute continues to play out in parallel. A resolution, or lack of one, could shape how comfortable other foreign investors feel about greenfield lithium projects in the DRC's under-explored Tanganyika basin.

Sources

• Caixin Global: Zijin-Controlled Manono Project Launches Congo's First Lithium Exports, 29 Jul 2026
• MINING.COM: Zijin plans lithium production in Congo from 2026, 15 Jan 2026

Photo: Lake Tanganyika in the DRC's Tanganyika province, near the Manono lithium project. EdwinAlden.1995, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.