Molybdenum News Center

Chinese Molybdenum Company Wins Bid in Congo

It is reported on Nov. 27, that there is a Chinese molybdenum company wins the bid of buying Congo Freeport McMoRan's majority stakes, which has got the support and salutes from the government in Congo. The mine is a copper project despite objections from state miner Gecamines.

This is a challenge transaction after Gecamines last week and assertation a right of first order dealing at the International Court of Arbitration.

Chinese Molybdenum spends $2.65 billion deal for Freeport's 56 percent stake, agreed to in May, must respect the rights of Gecamines, which holds a 20 percent stake in Tenke, one of the world's largest copper mines.

Toronto-based Lundin Mining (LUN.TO) exercise its right of first order on Nov. 15 and it owns the remaining 24% stakes, after which Freeport says the sale to China Molybdenum will go through. Gecamines said last month it had submitted an offer to buy Freeport's stake without revealing any details. Freeport denies that Gecamines has a right of first offer.

Democratic Republic of Congo, which mined nearly 1 million tonnes of copper last year, is Africa's top producer of the metal and also extracts significant quantities of gold, diamonds, cobalt and tin.

It is because of large amount of the mines, conflict metals are issued mainly based on Democratic Republic of Congo, including tungsten, gold, titanium, and tin. Conflict minerals are mineral mines where armed conflict and human rights abuses occur and mostly in the eastern region of DRC.

74 of Mendeleev's Periodic Chart of the Elements is tungsten and symbol W, which has been one of conflict metal. Wolfram is its another name used mainly in Europe. It owns properties of high melting point, high boiling point, high density, high thermal conductivity, high electricity conductivity, ect. Molybdenum is also a refractory metal, which is similar to tungsten. The Chinese molybdenum company wins bid in Congo is mainly dealing with molybdenum in China.

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