More than 300 thousand tonnes of ERG ferrochrome are shipped to Japan annually

Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) expects additional demand from the Asian market for ferroalloys and cobalt, ERG Executive Director Benedict Sobotka said. "Cobalt is a key factor in the growth of the electric vehicle market, but ensuring reliable supplies requires long-term planning and multi-billion investments.

"That is why manufacturers of electric vehicles must take on the obligation to ensure the procurement of cobalt using all necessary ethical standards as it is done at the enterprise ERG Metalkol RTR in the Congo. We aim to further develop cooperation with our Japanese partners and look forward to additional interest in our company in the Asian markets, taking into account the cobalt deliveries from Metalkol RTR scheduled for the beginning of 2019," the executive director of ERG said.

The ERG press service clarified that more than 300 thousand tonnes of ferrochrome produced at Kazchrome, which is part of the ERG, is shipped to Japan annually. ERG also recalled that the group is working on the implementation of the Pure Cobalt initiative in the framework of the Metalkol RTR project. The goal of the initiative is to provide responsible and guaranteed cobalt supplies. The Metalkol RTR project is the construction of a cobalt-copper dumping plant accumulated by other companies in the Congo during the years of previous mining in the region.

"After reaching full capacity, the Metalkol RTR plant will supply 120 thousand tonnes of copper and 24 thousand tonnes of cobalt annually. These volumes are sufficient to ensure production of over 3 million electric vehicles per year," ERG said.

Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) is one of the world's leading and most diversified companies in the extraction and enrichment of natural resources, with fully integrated mining, processing, energy, transport and marketing operations. The group is represented by enterprises and business development projects in 15 countries on four continents and is one of the largest employers in the industry. The head office of the management company is located in Luxembourg.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, ERG extracts and processes copper and cobalt ore at Boss Mining, Frontier and Comide. There are also a number of other development projects close to completion in this country, including the Metalkol Roan Tailings Reclamation (RTR) project. ERG Copper Smelter, Chambishi Metals PLC, is the leading enterprise in Zambia and the largest copper producer in the world.

The company also has projects for the production of coal, manganese, platinum, bauxite and fluorite in various countries of the African continent, including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mali and Mozambique. In Brazil, ERG continues to develop the project Pedra de Ferro, a complex for the production of iron ore with a capacity of 20 million tonnes per year.

Reported by ABC TV (Kazakhstan).