Buenassa in the DRC Advances a 30,000-Tonne-Per-Year Copper Refining Project

en.Wedoany.com Reported - The U.S. Trade and Development Agency signed an agreement with Buenassa Resources, a mineral processing company in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to provide pre-feasibility study funding for the company's copper-cobalt refinery project in Lualaba Province. The study will evaluate potential feedstock suppliers, develop the refinery's technical design, and determine the economic and financial parameters required for project development and long-term operation. After the pre-feasibility study is completed, the project will move on to subsequent engineering design, financing, and construction preparation.

Buenassa plans to build refining capacity in Phase 1 for 30,000 tonnes per year of LME-grade copper cathode and 5,000 tonnes of cobalt products, and in Phase 2 plans to expand copper capacity to 120,000 tonnes per year and cobalt capacity to 20,000 tonnes per year, while adding products such as high-purity cobalt metal and cobalt sulfate. The industrial roadmap disclosed by the company in January 2026 shows that Phase 1 refinery capital expenditure is expected to be about US$700 million, and the Phase 2 expansion is expected to be about US$1.3 billion.

The refinery is intended to use a hydrometallurgical route, including solvent extraction and electrowinning, to produce LME Grade A copper cathode as well as cobalt metal and cobalt sulfate. The project does not have its own mine and plans to obtain feedstock from industrial mines in which the DRC government holds equity, as well as from commercial purchases and offtake agreements. Buenassa has now entered the definitive feasibility study preparation stage and is advancing a global financing plan in parallel.

The DRC government has provided an initial US$3.5 million allocation to the project preparation stage through the Industrial Promotion Fund and has entered Buenassa Resources as a strategic shareholder. The company disclosed that the government holds a 10% free-carried interest. The project site is located in Lualaba Province's copper-cobalt belt, and verification of the candidate site in Kolwezi was completed in 2024.

The project also plans to connect with the Lobito Corridor logistics system. Buenassa proposes to develop an approximately 2,000-hectare special economic zone in a later phase to accommodate Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the refinery as well as logistics and strategic reserve facilities, and to build a logistics hub and dry port for regional mineral product transport.

The U.S. Trade and Development Agency said that projects it funds are usually implemented by U.S. companies, and that the follow-up to this pre-feasibility study will also provide procurement opportunities for U.S. mineral processing equipment and engineering technology companies to participate in project construction and operation.