Friday, Mar 18, 2022 • 26min
The Global Race to Mine the Metal of the Future
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In the high-stakes competition to dominate the business of clean energy, the Democratic Republic of Congo is a major arena: The country is the source of more than two-thirds of the world’s cobalt, a key component of electric-car batteries.
In recent years, China has established a strong presence in Congo, while the United States has lost ground. We went to the African country to understand how that happened.
Guest: Dionne Searcey, a correspondent for The New York Times.
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Break
Michael Barbaro
00:30
From
The New York Times
, I'm Michael Barbaro
. This is The Daily
.Share
00:37
Today, a high-stakes competition is underway to dominate the business of clean energy. My colleague,
Dionne Searcey
, went to the Democratic Republic of Congo
to understand how that competition is playing out between China
and the United States
over a single metal that could power the future of the automobile.Share
01:12
It's Friday, March 18.
Share
01:22
Dionne
, tell me about this trip that you recently took to the Democratic Republic of Congo
.Share
Dionne Searcey
01:26
So, I'm a former West and Central Africa bureau chief for
The New York Times.
And I also have reported there a lot on mining and natural resources. And now, I have joined the climate team, and so I took this trip to look at cobalt
.
Share
Michael Barbaro
01:45
And,
Dionne
, why cobalt
, of all things?Share
Dionne Searcey
01:50
Cobalt
is going to be extremely important to the future. It's a key ingredient in batteries of electric vehicles.Share
01:58
Ladies and gentlemen, our takeover of General Motors is complete.
Share
Dionne Searcey
02:02
I don't know if you saw the Super Bowl, but if you noticed all the ads -
Share
02:06
We're going all electric.
Share
Dionne Searcey
02:07
I mean, there were a zillion ads for electric vehicles.
Share
02:11
All electric? All electric. The BMW iX, electricity in its ultimate form.
Share
Dionne Searcey
02:18
The world is changing, and all the auto manufacturers, Ford, GM, everybody is looking at converting their entire fleets to electric vehicles. And
Biden
is making that a key part of his agenda. He's building charging stations across America. It's real, it's coming. And cobalt
is a key component of the batteries because cobalt
makes the battery go farther without needing a charge. And the place to go for cobalt
is the Democratic Republic of Congo
.Share
02:57
Congo
has 2/3 of the world's entire supply of cobalt
. It has more cobalt
in its tailing piles, the trash that mines throw out when they're digging for other minerals and metals, than most countries have in their entire land mass. And the cobalt
you find there is really, really high grade. It's pure. And it's easy to get.Share
03:24
And so, I got on a plane and went to
Kinshasa
, the capital of Congo,
to figure out who controls cobalt
right now. Because whoever controls cobalt
is going to have a key role in this new Industrial Revolution
that's happening across the world.Share
03:44
And when I arrive in
Kinshasa
, it just feels like everywhere I look is cobalt.
I checked into my hotel and the first thing I see is all these fancy people there, like guys in pinstriped suits and women in tight dresses and stilettos, clacking across the marble floor. The lobby has seven chandeliers, and people are sipping $10 espressos. And the breakfast bar has Swiss muesli, and this Italian pastry chef guy imported from Italy.Share
04:16
I'm looking around, and the hotel concierge guy is handing out cigars. And they even at one point roll out the red carpet because, like literally, because the president himself is arriving. And I turn to a guy standing next to me who's kind of looking at this $1000 Congolese modern art paintings that are lined up in the lobby, and I introduced myself. And I say, "I'm from
The New York Times
. What are you doing here?" And he says, "oh, I'm here for cobalt"
.Share
04:45
I mean, half the people in that hotel lobby were there for the very same thing.
Share
Michael Barbaro
04:49
So you are very much in the right place?
Share
Dionne Searcey
04:52
Exactly. So, you know, there are times in reporting when you get out into a situation and get on the ground, and you realize how absolutely wrong you are. Your whole hypothesis for a story is wrong. But this was a case where I didn't realize how right I was. I mean, there was an absolute
cobalt
rush going on here. I was in the center of it, but to really understand what was happening and get underneath all this, I needed to get out into the mining region.Share
Michael Barbaro
05:23
And what did you find there?
Share
Dionne Searcey
05:25
Well, so I started in a mining hub city called
Kolwezi
, and then got in a car and just went up and down this highway that bisected all kinds of industrial mines. Mines that were, you know, with big, huge equipment and earth-moving, you know, trucks, and bulldozers and that kind of thing.Share
05:46
But also mines that were just regular people out there digging in the dirt. Because the ground in
Congo
is so bursting with cobalt
that, really, what you need to dig for cobalt
there is a shovel.Share
Michael Barbaro
06:01
Wow.
Share
Dionne Searcey
06:02
And so, I went to one of these spots where there were several 100 guys out in flip-flops, sandals, some bare feet -
Share
06:15
Fine. How are you?
Share
Dionne Searcey
06:16
Who had just a pickaxe, and a shovel, and a little plastic headlamp.
Share
06:23
So it's very difficult?
Share
Dionne Searcey
06:26
And they were out there in the dirt digging tunnels, deep, deep, deep tunnels into the ground and emerging with giant, giant bags of
cobalt
.Share
Michael Barbaro
06:36
So what you're describing is basically freelance
cobalt
miners, regular people digging for the local equivalent of gold?Share
Dionne Searcey
06:47
That's exactly right. They would dig it and load up these bags on the back of bicycles or motorcycles and drive it out down the highway to this row of basically tin shacks like a mile long, where they would take it inside and pulverize it.
Share
07:05
Really, all you could hear. My ears were ringing from the sound of sledgehammers just smacking these rocks of
cobalt
against the concrete floor, and pulverizing it and taking it, and having someone determine the purity and the grade, and setting a price and selling it, and shipping it off.Share
07:29
Can I ask him what his name is?
Share
Dionne Searcey
07:31
One of the diggers I met is Georges Punga.
Share
07:32
George, George Punga.
Share
Dionne Searcey
07:37
And he was dressed in khakis that were covered in
cobalt
dust and -Share
07:44
What time does he start work?
Share
Dionne Searcey
07:44
Tennis shoes. And he had been digging all day, and he paused for a minute to talk to me.
Share
07:51
I start my job at 7 o'clock.
Share
Dionne Searcey
07:53
And told me that.
Share
07:54
Do you come here every day?
Share
07:58
Every day.
Share
07:59
Every day?
Share
Dionne Searcey
08:01
He had been digging for
Congo's
vast, vast array of minerals and metals.Share
08:09
Diamonds, gold, basically anything you can name. He'd been out digging.
Share
08:14
All his life, he's a digger.
Share
Dionne Searcey
08:15
Chasing whatever was the mineral or metal of the moment since he was 11 years old, when he started. And he was 41 now.
Share
08:24
He start digging when he has 11 years.
Share
08:27
No!
Share
Dionne Searcey
08:28
And now, he had turned to the mineral, you know, that was in hot demand:
cobalt
.Share
08:34
I was in the city of
Lubumbashi,
and we were driving around in the car. And we passed a little alleyway, and I looked at the end of the alley. And there was a giant, giant mountain, a black mountain. We said, turn the car this way. And as it turned out, it was a mountain of tailings, which is basically waste from a government mine.Share
08:58
And in that pile of waste was cobalt. It was exhumed, I guess, before cobalt had the value that it had. But now, they were going to start mining the waste pile. That's how valuable it was. And in front of this giant black mountain was a band.
Share
09:16
The national band of the State Mining Enterprise was practicing. And so it was this wild scene with tubas playing and dancers, and everyone sort of out practicing and celebrating. And behind them, this backdrop of a mountain of what the future could bring to
Congo
.Share
09:45
But like with any kind of rush on something valuable, there are winners and losers, And the miners I met, the people like Georges, out there with his shovel and pickaxe.
Share
09:56
They aren't reaping the benefits of this cobalt rush.
Congo
itself is barely reaping these benefits. What's happening is that cobalt has become this big competition between two great superpowers, China
and the United States.Share
Michael Barbaro
10:12
So which of those two countries,
Dionne
, is best positioned to win that competition, China
or the US
? And let's start with the US
.Share
Dionne Searcey
10:25
So America's interest in
Congo
dates back decades and decades. And even Albert Einstein
was writing secret cables to the president trying to get America to pay attention and get access to what Congo
had, to all the minerals and metals there, and including uranium. And in fact, we used uranium that came from Congo
when we dropped bombs on Nagasaki
and Hiroshima
.Share
Michael Barbaro
10:49
Wow.
Share
Dionne Searcey
10:49
And so this dates back to World War II. And in
the Cold War,
the CIA
launched missions to get into Congo,
all aimed at keeping Russia
out because Russia
was also interested in what Congo
had to offer with its natural resources.Share
11:12
In
Washington,
a distinguished visitor from Africa is welcomed to the White House
.Share
Dionne Searcey
11:17
In the'70s,
Nixon
invited Mobutu Sese Seko,
the president of Congo,
to Washington D. C.
Share
11:24
He and his wife were greeted by President
Nixon
and his wife.Share
Dionne Searcey
11:27
Pat Nixon
handed him a big bouquet of roses.Share
11:30
After laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in
Arlington National Cemetery
, President and Mrs. Mobutu were guests of honor at a White House
dinner.Share
Dionne Searcey
11:38
And they flew Seko to Disneyland. They flew him all over America to try to woo him. They ended up giving him one of those big giant C-130 lumbering kind of cargo planes and filled one of them with Coca-Cola because that's what he wanted, and that's what he liked to try to schmooze him.
Share
12:00
We supported the military there. We supported electricity, bringing power lines and all kinds of things. We spent millions and millions of dollars. And then in the'80s, as the Cold War waned down, we changed our focus.
Share
Peter Jennings
12:15
Well, at this hour,
Iraq
remains in firm control of the tiny oil-rich country of Kuwait
and -Share
Dionne Searcey
12:22
And the
US
really began to look away from Congo
.Share
Michael Barbaro
12:25
And where did that attention turn instead?
Share
George W. Bush
12:28
Much of the world is even more dependent upon imported oil and is even more vulnerable to Iraqi threats.
Share
Dionne Searcey
12:35
The
US
became consumed specifically on oil and on gaining access to oil. So the countries that became important were in the Middle East.Share
Donald Rumsfeld
12:45
Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behavior show that
Saddam Hussein
and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction.Share
Dionne Searcey
12:54
During the Bush administration, of course, September 11th happened. And that was a major distraction for America's interests. And we turned our attention to wars in
Afghanistan
and Iraq
.Share
George W. Bush
13:07
Coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war.
Share
Michael Barbaro
13:15
So during a period when the
US
had a strategic reason to care about the Democratic Republic of Congo
, it cares and invest sounds like a lot very much in its own interest. And then when those strategic reasons fade, the US
turns away. Its interest evaporates.Share
Dionne Searcey
13:33
That's exactly right. And just as America is stepping away,
China
becomes very interested in the Democratic Republic of Congo
. This is the early 2000s, and China
is looking at developing the western part of its nation. And in order to do that, it needs resources. It needs minerals and metals to build all the things that it wants to build and to industrialize. So it turns to Congo
.Share
Michael Barbaro
14:03
And what does that turning to
Congo
look like?Share
Dionne Searcey
14:05
Well, it happened to coincide with a perfect moment in time for
Congo's
history. Joseph Kabila
had just become president because his father had been assassinated, who was also a president. And he was interested in developing Congo,
and he did not have the resources to do it. Congo
needed really basic things like highways, and roads, and hospitals, and schools, and electricity.Share
14:32
So he took a trip to Beijing and went to visit the president there, and said to him, listen, you know, "I need help building things". And the president said, "okay, we need help developing our nation. Let's talk".
Share
14:49
So in 2005,
Congo
and China
struck up a deal. It was an infrastructure-for-minerals deal, where China
would come in and build the things that Congo
needed, and Congo
would give China
access to its copper and cobalt
. And this became a familiar pattern. It was kind of a blueprint that China
used when it struck deals in other countries. This sort of template that it used for a big strategy that it had called the Belt and Road program.Share
Michael Barbaro
15:28
So, in the same way that the
US
had poured resources into the Democratic Republic of Congo
in the'40s and the'50s and the'60s when it advanced American interests, China does the same
now to advance its interests in the early 2000s. So basically, the two countries are kind of switching roles.Share
Dionne Searcey
15:49
Exactly. So when the world wakes up to the potential of
cobalt
and, you know, in the past few years starts thinking about electric car batteries, China
is in this really strong position.Share
16:03
And nothing encapsulates that more than the sale of two mining sites in Southeastern
Congo
.Share
Michael Barbaro
16:20
We'll be right back.
Share
Break
Michael Barbaro
17:58
So,
Dionne
, tell us about these mines, and what they tell us about who really gets to control cobalt
going forward.Share
Dionne Searcey
18:08
So
China
is really slowly buying up a lot of cobalt
mines and I had mentioned before that the US
had left Congo
, but really there was still one relic of US
involvement there. It was an American mining company that owned two giant mining sites. But in 2016, the company got into financial trouble and decided to sell one of these mines. It was a giant industrial mine, the size of Los Angeles.Share
Michael Barbaro
18:39
Wow.
Share
Dionne Searcey
18:39
It was massive. And the best and only offer came from a Chinese company called
China Moly
which was backed by the State of China. And again a few years later, China
was in a position to make the best offer when that company sold off its last remaining asset. It was cobalt
that was still underground in the middle of the forest, one of the biggest cobalt
reserves in the world. China Moly
was there, stepped in and bought that too.Share
Michael Barbaro
19:11
And so by the time
China
buys these mines, just how much of the cobalt
market in Congo
does China
control?Share
Dionne Searcey
19:21
China
controls the overwhelming majority of the cobalt
market there. In fact, it controls 15 of the 19 existing industrial cobalt
mines in Congo
.Share
Michael Barbaro
19:33
And that very much seems in keeping with the relationship you just described between
China
and the Democratic Republic of Congo
. But I'm curious why the US
didn't do anything to try to wedge its way into this market. Given everything, you've just told us about how important cobalt
is. Did the US
try at all to stop China from buying those mines or to get an American company to buy those mines?Share
Dionne Searcey
20:05
Well, there were people on the ground that we're raising red flags. People in the State Department, Congolese mining officials, were all desperate for America to stay in the country. But you know, all these red flags, all these warning signs went unanswered in
D. C
.Share
20:23
One of these sales took place in the last bit of the Trump administration, when he was busy trying to get America to regain its interest in coal. So there was just a massive disconnect in America between what was happening on the ground in
Congo,
and no one could get anyone in D. C.
to pay attention.Share
Michael Barbaro
20:45
It's interesting,
Dionne
, what you described at the beginning of this conversation as a competition between China
and the US
over cobalt
in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Doesn't really seem like much of a competition at all anymore, right? By the end of 2020, it seems like China
has one and the race is over.Share
Dionne Searcey
21:05
Well, it looks like that, but there are some interesting things happening.
Biden
came in, and he has really stressed the importance of electric vehicles and made that a huge part of his agenda. And he's turning up at auto manufacturing plants when they open up new battery plants, and is lining the highways with charging stations. And he wants to try to get back in the game in Congo
.Share
21:30
And meanwhile, another interesting thing happening is in
Congo
itself. They're having a bit of, I guess you'd say, buyer's remorse about China
. They are reevaluating a lot of the contracts, those ones that were signed in 2005.Share
21:47
They're thinking that maybe all the projects that were promised weren't built, and that some of the construction that happened is shoddy. And so they're looking into those contracts and, in fact, are even reevaluating the relationship with
China Moly
, the company that bought these two big American-owned mines.Share
22:10
And so there are some really testy allegations flying right now, and the Congolese government is looking into things. And it could change the relationship and
China Moly
could even end up having to exit the country.Share
Michael Barbaro
22:28
Which could, in theory, create an opening for president
Biden
and the United States
to swoop in just as the country now realizes how far behind it has fallen.Share
Dionne Searcey
22:42
That's exactly right. It could lead to an American company striking up some kind of partnership and gaining access to the mine again. And when I was in
Kinshasa
, I met with President Felix Tshisekedi,
and he told me he would welcome more American investment.Share
Michael Barbaro
23:00
Dionne
, since you mentioned meeting with the President of Congo
. I'm curious how the leaders of the country think about their own role in the future of cobalt
. We've been talking so much about the great powers and their competition over this resource, but it's the DRC's resource, not anybody else's. So has there been any kind of discussion of Congo
becoming the middleman, the seller, in the same way that Saudi Arabia
treats oil in their country?Share
Dionne Searcey
23:31
Well it does, you know, officially control all the
cobalt
, but it can't really mine it and get it out of the ground and put it on the market on its own. It just, you know, the colonial legacy, the years of civil wars, the corrupt presidents have left it really at the mercy of international partners. It really needs those. And it's trying to be more assertive and the president, you know, told me it wants to be more assertive and gain control.Share
23:60
But the best it can do for now is navigate these powers at play from abroad. And it's trying to do that right now. That's part of what
Congo
is getting into when it's looking at these contracts with China. It's asserting itself and trying to take control.Share
Michael Barbaro
24:17
So what are the stakes here? If the
US
doesn't make its way back into the Democratic Republic of Congo,
does not secure its desired share of the cobalt
market, and if China
ends up really controlling the world's access to this essential material, what happens?Share
Dionne Searcey
24:36
So the problem with just one country controlling the supply chain for electric batteries is that they would have political leverage. If relations sour, then that country doesn't have to share. And it's really not that much of a stretch to imagine things going sour between the
US
and China.
Or there could be disruptions.Share
24:57
Cobalt
isn't used only just in electric vehicles, it's used in a lot of things. We need for renewable energy like wind turbines, and it's used in things like phones and computers. So when my colleagues, Eric Lipton
and Mike Forsyth, and I talked to people in both the Obama and the Trump administration's about the US
losing access to cobalt
in Congo
, they were horrified at what we've given up.Share
25:24
I mean, whoever controls
cobalt
and all these other metals and minerals is going to be a leader in the new global economy, which is really going to rely on renewable energy. They'll be able to set the terms for how the world meets the challenges of this century.Share
Michael Barbaro
25:47
Well,
Dionne
, thank you very much. We appreciate it.Share
Dionne Searcey
25:54
Thank you.
Share
Michael Barbaro
25:57
Since we spoke with
Dionne
, a court in Congo
issued a major ruling against China Moly
and forced it to give up control of one of its cobalt
mines for at least six months in a dispute over missed payments and possible fraud. Meanwhile -Share
Joe Biden
26:17
And when it comes to clean energy,
China
has spent several years cornering the market on many of the materials that power the technologies that we rely on.Share
Michael Barbaro
26:25
President
Biden
announced a series of major investments aimed at ensuring that the
United States
can secure access to materials like cobalt
in the future.Share
Joe Biden
26:37
And this is not anti-China or anti anything else. It's pro-American.
Share
Michael Barbaro
26:51
We'll be right back.
Share
Break
Michael Barbaro
27:31
Here's what else you need to know today.
Share
27:35
An intelligence assessment from Britain has concluded that Russia's invasion of
Ukraine
has stalled, and that Russian forces have made little progress on land, sea or air, even as they suffer heavy losses. The US
now estimates that in three weeks of fighting, 7000 Russian soldiers have been killed. More than the number of American troops killed over 20 years in Iraq
and Afghanistan
.Share
Antony Blinken
28:05
We have a strong sense of what
Russia
could do next. We believe that Moscow
may be setting the stage to use a chemical weapon and then falsely blame Ukraine
to justify escalating its attacks on the Ukrainian people.Share
Michael Barbaro
28:19
As Russia's frustration with the situation grows, The US Secretary of State,
Antony Blinken
, warned that Vladimir Putin
may soon take extreme measures such as deploying chemical weapons in Ukraine
.Share
28:38
Today's episode was produced by Michael Simon Johnson, with help from Eric Krupke and Kaitlin Roberts. It was edited by Patricia Willens, Marc Georges, Paige Cowett, and Anita Badejo. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.
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29:04
That's it for
The Daily
. I'm Michael Barbaro
. See You on Monday.Share
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Michael Barbaro
Dionne Searcey
Peter Jennings
George W. Bush
Donald Rumsfeld
Joe Biden
Antony Blinken