Gécamines wins rights to market half of KCC's copper

The Democratic Republic of Congo's state mining company, Gécamines, has secured rights to market a significant portion of the copper produced at Glencore's Kamoto Copper Company operation, deepening its role as an independent trader of Congolese metal.

Under the deal, signed in Cape Town, Gécamines will tender roughly half of KCC's output for the next two years, dropping to 30% thereafter. The arrangement mirrors similar agreements Gécamines has struck with other large Congolese mines in which it holds minority stakes. Gécamines is expected to market the copper through its trading partnership with Mercuria Energy Group, which provides financial, logistical and technical support to the state miner's recently established trading unit.

Scaling up fast

KCC produced around 190,000 tonnes of copper the previous year and is targeting annual output of 300,000 tonnes, following the land-access agreement Glencore and Gécamines struck a day earlier. Gécamines holds a 25% interest in KCC, with the Congolese government owning a further 5%. Separately that month, Orion CMC, an investment vehicle backed by the US International Development Finance Corporation, announced a proposed transaction involving Glencore's Congolese copper and cobalt assets, part of a broader wave of Western interest in the country's mining sector.

From passive shareholder to active trader

The marketing rights agreement represented a significant evolution in Gécamines' role, from a passive minority shareholder collecting dividends to an active participant capturing trading margins on physical metal. That shift reflected Kinshasa's broader ambition to extract more value from its mineral wealth without resorting to nationalisation or renegotiating existing joint-venture structures outright — instead using commercial leverage over sales and marketing to increase the state's take. Analysts said replicating the model across the DRC's other large copper and cobalt mines would require Gécamines to build considerably more in-house trading, financing and risk-management capability than it currently possessed. Even so, the KCC agreement gave Gécamines a template it could point to in negotiations with other foreign operators keen to avoid a more disruptive renegotiation of their underlying mining contracts.

Sources

• Miningmx: Congo state miner wins Glencore copper marketing rights, 19 Feb 2026
• Business Insider Africa: The DRC bets big on copper to boost global influence with a landmark mining deal, 19 Feb 2026

Photo: Electrolytic copper processing racks at a refinery in the DRC's copperbelt. Gécamines (Zairian company), Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.