New Eurasian Resources chief courts Chinese investment for Congo assets

Eurasian Resources Group has a new chief executive courting Chinese capital for its African mines, as the Kazakh-founded miner looks to fund growth at its copper and cobalt operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Shukhrat Ibragimov, newly appointed to the top job at one of the world's largest diversified miners, has begun approaching Chinese investors to back what the company describes as world-class deposits of key metals across Africa and Central Asia. ERG's Congolese assets include the Metalkol tailings-reprocessing operation and the Frontier and Boss Mining copper-cobalt mines in Katanga province.

Why China, why now

China has emerged as the dominant source of capital, equipment and offtake for DRC copper and cobalt projects over the past decade, and ERG's pivot follows a well-trodden path already taken by rivals such as CMOC Group and Zijin Mining. For ERG, courting Chinese money offers a route to expand processing capacity and extend mine lives at operations that compete for capital within a sprawling group that also spans ferrochrome, alumina and iron ore.

The company has previously flagged plans to grow output from its DRC copper-cobalt assets, which sit within the same Katanga copperbelt as Glencore's Kamoto Copper Company and CMOC's Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu mines. ERG's Metalkol operation, which reprocesses historic mine tailings around the Musonoi river basin near Kolwezi, has positioned itself as one of the more environmentally conscious operators in the region, later becoming the first tailings-processing site globally to win the Copper Mark certification.

A crowded field

Ibragimov's outreach comes as competition for Congolese copper-cobalt capital intensifies. Washington has been pushing its own critical-minerals partnerships with Kinshasa, while Chinese groups continue to dominate production and processing capacity across Katanga. For ERG, a Kazakh company with a complex ownership history rooted in the former Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, deepening ties with Chinese financiers offers a way to keep pace with better-capitalised rivals without diluting its own shareholders.

The move underscores how central the DRC has become to ERG's growth strategy, even as the group continues to weather scrutiny over historic governance issues linked to its Congolese dealings. How much fresh capital Ibragimov secures — and on what terms — will shape how aggressively ERG can expand at Metalkol and Frontier in the years ahead.

Sources

• Business Insider Africa: New Eurasian Resources Group CEO Shukhrat Ibragimov courts Chinese investment, 03 Mar 2025

Photo: A steam shovel loading copper and cobalt ore for processing at Musonoi Mine near Kolwezi in the DRC. Gécamines (Zairian company), Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.