A U.S. government-backed group’s plan to take a stake in Glencore’s Congo copper operations could be the first step in creating a U.S. company that accumulates mining assets in Africa.
Orion CMC, a new venture led by Orion Resource Partners with government support from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and Abu Dhabi’s ADQ, announced on Tuesday a preliminary agreement to buy Glencore’s 40% stake in a copper and cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The deal is the first major deal since the consortium was formed late last year and strengthens the Trump administration’s efforts to shore up supplies of critical minerals and make up for lost ground to China. After decades of reliance on the private mining sector, the United States is now seeking government-level supply partnerships around the world to fund massive new stockpile programs and seek price floors to keep miners operating during market downturns.
The deal would create a new entity owned 60% by Glencore and 40% by Orion CMC, and could serve as a vehicle to buy additional assets in the so-called Central African Copperbelt, the people said.
The company may seek to bring on new investors and eventually go public, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private matters. The two countries are discussing various structures and plans for the new vehicle, but negotiations are ongoing and a final strategy has not yet been agreed, one of the people warned.
The Copperbelt spans Congo and Zambia, two of Africa’s top producers of industrial metals that are also key to electrification and the broader energy transition. Congo is the world’s largest supplier of cobalt, which is used in electric vehicle batteries and the defense and aerospace industries.
Chinese miners account for most of Congo’s metal production, but across the border in Zambia, the biggest copper producers are Western companies First Quantum Minerals and Barrick Mining.
The proposed transaction would mark a turnaround in Glencore’s relationship with the US government. The Swiss trader settled a corruption investigation in May 2022 after pleading guilty to bribery charges related to payments to Congolese officials. The U.S. Department of Justice ended Glencore’s surveillance program as part of a plea deal just 10 months ago, earlier than originally planned.
Glencore is currently in talks to sell itself to Rio Tinto Group to create the world’s largest mining company. Rio’s main attraction is Glencore’s copper portfolio, but mainly its South American assets Mutanda Mining and Kamoto Copper Company, rather than its Congolese arm.
A statement announcing the agreement said the enterprise value of the assets would be around $9 billion, but the 40% stake Orion CMC will pay Glencore for is likely to be significantly less. This is because Glencore owns 70% of Kamoto’s shares and 95% of Mutanda’s shares, and also has a large amount of debt at the asset level. One of the people said that based on the $9 billion valuation, Orion CMC could pay just over $2 billion, but cautioned that the final price was still being negotiated.
Potential deals involving Glencore’s subsidiaries have been complicated in recent years by Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler, who is under U.S. sanctions and receives royalties from both mines in non-U.S. currencies. The U.S. government is working to ensure the Orion CMC transaction occurs without violating U.S. law, the people said.
A DFC spokesperson said the organization could not comment on specific transactions due to commercial considerations, but said it “takes compliance with U.S. sanctions very seriously in all transactions we support.” The State and Treasury Departments did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
Orion has been in talks to invest in Glencore’s Congo mine since making an initial approach in late 2024, Bloomberg reported. But the partnership with DFC announced in October and the minerals agreement signed by the U.S. and Congolese governments in December accelerated negotiations, the people said.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said in a statement that Orion CMC’s agreement with Glencore “reflects the core purpose of the U.S.-Democratic Republic of the Congo Strategic Partnership Agreement by encouraging increased U.S. investment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s mining sector.”
The U.S. government’s investment in Orion CMC is designed to “leverage Orion’s market knowledge and expertise” and “strengthen the security of mineral supply chains critical to the United States and its allies,” a DFC spokesperson told Bloomberg in an email.
Orion CMC is also involved in another small deal in Congo, supporting efforts to buy Delaware-registered Virtus Minerals Inc., which ran into trouble while building one of the world’s largest cobalt mines, according to people familiar with the matter.
The agreement with Glencore was announced the day before a Cabinet meeting on critical minerals hosted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Orion CMC hopes to have other allies join as investors, including the United States and the United Arab Emirates, the people said.
(Written by William Clowes and Jack Farsey)
