DRC Launches $180 Million Drive to Take Control of Mineral Data

KINSHASA — The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has launched a $180 million geological mapping programme aimed at uncovering more of its mineral wealth and placing strategic geological information under greater state control.

The initiative, which began in January, seeks to modernise geological surveys and establish a comprehensive national database of the country's mineral resources.

The programme involves partnerships with organisations from the United States, France, South Africa and Spain and will use airborne surveys, digitised historical records and advanced data analysis to map more than 700,000 square kilometres of the country.

Spain-based geodata company Xcalibur was contracted to undertake the nationwide mapping exercise, while the DRC is also working with France's Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM), South Africa's Council for Geoscience and US-based KoBold Metals.

The National Geological Survey of Congo (SGNC) expects the country's national geological databank to be fully operational by the end of 2026.

Raoul Wazenga Vitima, director general of the SGNC, said the information generated through the programme would belong to the Congolese state.

“The data generated under these programmes constitute a strategic asset of the Congolese state,” Vitima told Reuters.

The project marks a major shift in how Kinshasa intends to manage geological information, with the government seeking to reduce reliance on foreign companies and institutions that have historically held significant geological data on the country.

Only about 20% of the DRC has been systematically explored, despite the country possessing some of the world's largest deposits of critical minerals.

The DRC is the world's largest cobalt producer and holds the largest known cobalt reserves. It also has substantial deposits of copper, lithium, tantalum and gold.

Exploration expenditure reached $130.7 million in 2024, the highest level recorded in Africa, although exploration has largely remained concentrated in the copper and cobalt-rich provinces of Lualaba and Haut-Katanga.

From colonial records to a national database

The mapping programme comes decades after extensive geological surveys conducted during the Belgian colonial period.

Large volumes of historical geological information, including maps, field notes and exploration records, remain outside the DRC.

Millions of pages of records are held at Belgium's AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, covering decades of geological exploration before the country's independence in 1960.

The museum has committed to digitising the material and eventually making it publicly accessible.

The historical records have gained renewed significance as international competition intensifies over access to critical minerals needed for electric vehicles, renewable energy technologies and other industries.

The DRC's new database will use a tiered-access system. Basic geological information is expected to be made freely available, while more sensitive datasets will be commercialised, with access assessed partly according to the country's strategic interests.

The policy could give the Congolese government greater influence over which mineral deposits are explored, which companies gain access to geological information and how future mining agreements are negotiated.

Mark Jessell, a geology and geophysics expert at the University of Western Australia, said control over geological information was becoming increasingly important for mineral-rich countries.

“Control of geological data is increasingly becoming a strategic policy tool,” Jessell said. “It affects not only what a country mines today, but what it may discover and develop tomorrow.”

The initiative comes as the United States and China compete for greater access to the DRC's critical mineral resources.

Kinshasa says the new system will apply the same access rules to investors regardless of nationality, while allowing the government to diversify its mining partnerships and retain control over strategic geological information.

The DRC has already demonstrated its willingness to intervene in mineral markets. In 2025, the government imposed a cobalt export ban followed by quotas, a move that helped push the global cobalt market from surplus into deficit and contributed to a sharp rise in prices.

With the new mapping programme, Kinshasa is seeking to extend that influence further upstream ,controlling not only the extraction and export of minerals, but also the geological information that determines where future deposits are discovered and developed.