Qualla: Dikulushi Mine

Dikulushi Mine: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

To get copper out of Dikulushi in the early 2000s, you first had to cross a lake. Trucks loaded with concentrate rolled onto a motorised pontoon ferry at Kilwa, spent hours grinding across Lake Mweru to Nchelenge in Zambia, then drove 2,500 kilometres south and west to a smelter in Tsumeb, Namibia. The mine itself sits 23 kilometres west of the lake in Pweto Territory, deep in what was then Katanga Province. Its ore was rich - 481,000 tonnes of proven copper-silver reserves, with more than 650,000 estimated - but the story that matters most at Dikulushi is not geological.

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Dikulushi Mine: The Opening

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Anvil Mining, a company that once counted itself the leading copper operator in the DRC, brought Dikulushi into production in October 2002. The deal included a 10 percent Community Trust - an arrangement meant to channel benefits to local Moero Sector communities. For two years t...

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Dikulushi Mine: Kilwa, October 2004

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In October 2004 a small, poorly-armed insurgent group attempted a brief uprising in Kilwa. Congolese army soldiers of the FARDC 62nd Brigade were sent to suppress it. What followed has been documented by human rights investigators as the Kilwa massacre: dozens of civilians killed...

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Dikulushi Mine: A Mine Passed From Hand to Hand

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In December 2008, with copper prices collapsing, Anvil placed Dikulushi on care and maintenance. Mawson West, a new operator, reopened the mine in July 2010. Yields came in lower than expected. In 2015 Mawson West mothballed it again. Financial pressure drove the company into the...

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Dikulushi Mine: What You See From Above

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Dikulushi is not easy to find from the air. It sits in rolling miombo country, the Moero Sector's grassy plateaus folding down toward Lake Mweru to the east. The pit itself is compact - a bright red-brown incision among green hills, with a processing plant, a camp and a narrow ac...

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