Metal prices are rising, but only copper is shipping, and reserves are the residual.

By Kanisa Magazine · June 2025

Cobalt was 39 per cent dearer on 13 June 2025 than on the last day of 2024, copper was almost 10 per cent dearer, and Congo’s gross reserves were 5.9 per cent lower than at the end of April. Those three moves, all read from the BCC’s weekly digest, are the external account in miniature. Price is helping. Volume is a mixed story, since the cobalt export suspension keeps the metal at home. Financing is arriving slowly, in pieces, and reserves are what is left over.

Reading the account as four separate forces, price, volume, imports and financing, shows why a good commodity year does not automatically build a buffer.

The price effect

Three metals and one barrel of oil moved by very different amounts.

According to the BCC’s table of international prices, London cobalt cathode went from US$24,050 a tonne on 31 December to US$33,335 on 13 June. Copper on the London Metal Exchange rose from US$8,789 to US$9,637 a tonne. Brent crude, which had fallen to US$62.72 a barrel at the end of April, was US$74.23 by 13 June, an 18 per cent rebound in six weeks. Gold in New York climbed from US$2,639 to US$3,427 an ounce.

For the DRC, the winners are obvious and the cost is equally so. Copper and cobalt earn the dollars; oil sits on the import side of the ledger, where a dearer barrel raises the fuel bill.

The volume effect

Copper volumes are holding, while cobalt has been taken off the export schedule.

The same digest records first-quarter copper output of 785,841 tonnes, a pace of about 3.14 million tonnes a year against 3.10 million in 2024. Cobalt output in the quarter was 41,721 tonnes, below the 2024 quarterly average of about 49,700 tonnes. The gap reflects the export suspension that the mining regulator ARECOMS began on 22 February.

On 21 June ARECOMS extended that suspension by three months, citing continuing high stocks on the market, and said it could modify, extend or end the measure early. The scope covers cobalt from industrial, semi-industrial, artisanal and small-scale mining alike. A price rise multiplied by tonnes that cannot be shipped is inventory value, not export revenue, and it will not reach the BCC’s reserves until the metal leaves the country.

Imports and financing

Reserves are the residual, so the lag between earning and receiving matters.

Reserves read US$6,132 million at the end of 2024, US$7,162 million on 30 April and US$6,741 million on 13 June, which the BCC puts at about three months of imports. The decline since April is real but modest. Financing is partly behind it, because institutional money arrives on a schedule. The IMF reached staff-level agreement on its first review on 13 May, with the Board due at the end of June, and the World Bank said on 21 June that it had signed US$2 billion of agreements with Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba across five projects, including Inga 3 hydropower, governance, infrastructure, digital transformation and urban resilience.

Those are commitments, not cash. Project loans disburse against works, so they support the investment programme rather than the reserves line in the near term.

What the mechanism implies

The cobalt suspension turns a price gain into a stock, and the stock is only worth something if it can later be sold.

The mechanism is a chain of receipts. A tonne of copper cathode is shipped, paid for in dollars, and credited to the Congolese banks and, through them and through taxes and royalties, to the BCC. A tonne of cobalt held under the suspension is not on that chain. It sits at a mine or a depot, financed by the producer, and counts as income only on sale. The beneficiaries of the cobalt rally, therefore, are those who can wait.

So what for business

Contractors and suppliers should be paid against copper, not cobalt, until the suspension ends.

The practical implication is a sorting of counterparties. Copper-led operators are earning at higher prices on steady volumes and can pay suppliers on time. Cobalt-heavy producers and traders hold inventory and may be short of cash. Lenders and contractors should adjust credit terms by exposure, and treasurers should read the next two weekly digests for reserves, since a number below US$6.5 billion would show that the financing is not arriving as fast as the imports leave.