Congo ships its first lithium to China, deepening Beijing's grip on Central Africa's battery minerals

The Democratic Republic of Congo has exported lithium for the first time in its history, with Chinese mining giant Zijin Mining confirming that shipments from its Manono project began moving to China in June. The milestone extends Beijing's already dominant position in Congo's critical minerals sector, where Chinese firms already control the bulk of cobalt and copper production, and positions the DRC to become a significant new supplier for the global electric vehicle battery supply chain.

A fast-tracked, disputed project
Zijin's processing plant at Manono entered production in May, a full month ahead of schedule, with exports of crude lithium sulfate, an intermediate product between raw concentrate and battery-grade lithium carbonate, following almost immediately in June.

Reuters sources with direct knowledge of operations described initial shipments as trial volumes, with one trader estimating only a few thousand metric tons had left the country so far, while another said tens of thousands of tones of concentrate had already been produced, much of it still in transit and unlikely to reach Chinese refineries before October.

Zijin is targeting 30,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalents from the project this year, with a smelter and other downstream facilities expected online by December.

Manono, one of the world's largest undeveloped hard-rock lithium deposits, has been the subject of a bitter ownership dispute. Congo revoked the permit held by Australian miner AVZ Minerals and reassigned part of the project to a new entity, Manono Lithium, now majority-owned by Zijin at 54.9 percent, with state miner Cominiere holding 35.1 percent and the Congolese government retaining a 10 percent stake.

That ownership structure mirrors a pattern increasingly familiar across Chinese resource investment in Africa: majority foreign capital paired with meaningful state participation, designed to align the investor's and the host governments incentives. US-backed KoBold Metals, which holds the licence for an adjoining section of the same deposit, has said it will not proceed with development until the legal disputes over Manono are resolved.

A complex route to market
Because Congo is landlocked at Manono, the logistics behind the export are far from straightforward. Lithium concentrate is trucked overland from the mine to Kalemie, a lakeside city on Lake Tanganyika, before moving onward through Tanzania to reach Chinese refineries, a multi-leg supply chain that underscores how much regional infrastructure, and by extension neighboring states, now sits inside China's critical minerals corridor in Central Africa.

Widening the mineral footprint, and the security stakes

With lithium now added to its existing dominance of DRC cobalt and copper, China holds commanding positions across all three of the core inputs for lithium-ion battery chemistry inside a single African country. That concentration comes at a moment when eastern Congo's security situation remains volatile, with armed clashes, extremist activity and attacks on foreign workers reported in the region, a backdrop that has previously drawn scrutiny to the flow of weapons and security arrangements tied to Chinese mining interests in the east of the country.

It also sharpens an emerging contest between Washington and Beijing over African critical minerals, after Kinshasa reportedly circulated a shortlist of state-owned mining assets, including lithium, manganese, copper-cobalt and gold projects, to potential American investors. For a continent already navigating competing Chinese, Russian, Turkish and Western interests in its resource and security architecture, Manono is a clear marker of how battery-mineral geopolitics is being decided well before most of the metal itself reaches a battery factory.

Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.

International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP

[email protected]
+233-555-275-880
References:
Reuters via Mining Weekly, "Zijin starts Congo lithium exports to China, sources say," 16 July 2026, https://www.miningweekly.com/article/zijin-starts-congo-lithium-exports-to-china-sources-say-2026-07-16

CNBC Africa, "Zijin starts Congo lithium exports to China, sources say," https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2026/zijin-starts-congo-lithium-exports-to-china-sources-say

MINING.COM, "Zijin starts Congo lithium exports to China," https://www.mining.com/web/zijin-starts-congo-lithium-exports-to-china

BusinessDay NG, "DRC begins first lithium exports as China's Zijin advances Manono project," https://businessday.ng/africa/article/drc-begins-first-lithium-exports-as-chinas-zijin-advances-manono-project/

China Global South Project, "China's Zijin to Launch Congo's First Lithium Output in June From Disputed Manono Deposit," https://chinaglobalsouth.com/2026/02/12/zijin-mining-manono-lithium-congo-june-2026-exports/