Trading house Trafigura Group is in talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo about financing a new state-controlled company that will buy all the African nation’s hand-mined cobalt. Entreprise Generale du Cobalt will need $80-million to $100-million to begin buying cobalt from so-called artisanal miners, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the negotiations are private. Mines Minister Willy Kitobo Samsoni said last week that hand-dug metal accounts for a fifth of cobalt output in Congo, the world’s biggest producer of the essential ingredient in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
