Kinshasa — As demand for batteries drives a surge in the price of cobalt, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is gearing up to overhaul its mining regulations to harvest more profit from the coveted metal. The global boom for smartphones and electric cars has pushed up the price of cobalt, a key ingredient in top-range batteries, to $75,000 a tonne — an increase of 127% in one year. DRC is the world’s leading producer of cobalt, where authorities consider the previous mining code to favour foreign investors at the expense of the economy. The Central African country is also the top African producer of copper, currently trading on the London Metal Exchange at more than $7,000 a tonne for the first time in three-and-a-half years. Congo’s production of copper has rocketed from 27,000 tonnes in 2002 to more than one-million tonnes today, according to the preamble to the new mining code. The code should "make the mines a true motor of the development of the country", according to Minis...
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