The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) wants to develop a $29-billion (C$40.1 billion) iron ore export plan in the country’s north linked at one time to U.S.-sanctioned Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler.
Called Mines de fer de la Grande Orientale (Minefor), the area that Kinshasa wants to develop has cumulative iron ore resources of 15 billion to 20 billion tonnes grading more than 60% iron, according to a government summary of a cabinet meeting. The document sketches an initial production capacity of about 50 million tonnes per year, with the potential to scale to 300 million tonnes – roughly 2.5 times the 120-million-tonne-a-year nameplate output targeted at full production by Guinea’s Simandou iron ore project.
“While details are unclear, this may well relate to the Banalia deposit in the Tshopo province, formally associated with Gertler,” BMO Capital Markets analysts said Wednesday. One earlier licence holder in Banalia – Oriental Iron Company – was among entities the U.S. Treasury sanctioned in 2018 as part of a network affiliated with Gertler, who has long faced scrutiny over DRC mining deals.
The revived iron pitch appears destined for a funding wish-list Kinshasa says it plans to give the United States this month as it tries to reinforce peace in the Central African country’s war-torn east with the help of American quid pro quo security. Washington has been promoting a DRC-Rwanda peace framework alongside a U.S.-DRC strategic minerals partnership that is meant to expand opportunities for U.S. private-sector investment.
The Minefor move is seen as a reinvigoration of a long-mooted iron ore corridor, BMO analysts said. Key details remain unclear, including which deposit would underpin a mine large enough to justify a new bulk rail line and an Atlantic deep-water port.
Infrastructure buildout
The assets were once held by entities linked to Gertler during the era of former DRC president Joseph Kabila, more than a decade ago. Gertler, who first made his fortune in Congo diamonds before partnering with Glencore (LSE: GLEN) on mining projects, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2017 under the Global Magnitsky program over alleged corruption tied to DRC mining and oil deals. Gertler has denied wrongdoing.
“This project aims, for the first time at industrial scale, to develop iron ore potential,” the government said in the summary, signed by Communications Minister Patrick Muyaya in his role as spokesperson.
The gap between ambition and execution is vast, analysts note. DRC has not identified a specific orebody in its public description and the implied logistics are greenfield in a country with limited bulk haulage infrastructure and a long record of stalled megaprojects.
Public pitch
International institutional investors have shown interest in the concept, Kinshasa said, but no legal commitments exist at this stage. The cabinet authorized the creation of an expanded inter-ministerial commission to steer the project’s governance and “progressive structuring,” the summary said.
Minefor also appears to formalize a narrative mines minister Louis Watum Kabamba has been building since late November. Speaking that month at Kinshasa’s Makutano economic forum, he outlined “structuring” an iron project in the Grande Orientale and cited an investment requirement of “a little more than $50 billion.”
For now, the public record amounts to a state-backed pitch: a very large, high-grade iron concept tied to a new logistics corridor, promoted to diversify an economy still overwhelmingly concentrated in copper and cobalt.
Whether Minefor becomes a bankable project – or remains an aspirational line item on Congo’s investor roadshow – will hinge on deposit clarity, permitting, partner selection and, above all, financing for infrastructure on a scale few countries can build by themselves.
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