Qualla: Kamoto Mine https://qualla.com/kamoto-mine en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/4/5/kamoto-mine-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Kamoto Mine https://qualla.com/kamoto-mine Kamoto Mine: Introduction https://qualla.com/kamoto-mine/ Photo credit Gécamines (Zairian company), Public domain. The copper here runs 4.21 percent. The cobalt runs 0.37 percent. Those numbers do not sound dramatic until you understand that most copper mines on Earth survive on grades a fraction of that strength - and that the cobalt in your phone, your laptop, your electric car almost certainly passed through the red earth west of Musonoi, through the roasters at the Luilu plant, through the long chain of hands and conveyors that begins here at Kamoto.

Read more: Kamoto Mine on Qualla

Image: Gécamines (Zairian company) | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/4/5/kamoto-mine-wp/kw45-kamoto-mine-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Kamoto Mine: A Seam the World Cannot Leave Alone https://qualla.com/kamoto-mine/ Photo credit Gécamines (Zairian company), Public domain. Kamoto Mine sits in the former Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, part of the copperbelt arc that curves south into Zambia. Gecamines, the state mining company, opened the underground operation in 1969. Through the 1980s the mine produced three million tonn...

Read more: Kamoto Mine on Qualla

Image: Gécamines (Zairian company) | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/4/5/kamoto-mine-wp/kw45-kamoto-mine-a-seam-the-world-cannot-leave-alone.mp3 0:06 2 full Kamoto Mine: The Reopening https://qualla.com/kamoto-mine/ Photo credit Gécamines (Zairian company), Public domain. A 2006 feasibility study concluded that Kamoto could be revived at surprisingly low cost. The rooms-and-pillars were mostly intact. The metallurgical plant at Luilu, in operation since Gecamines fired its roasters in 1952, needed only upgrades rather than replacement. The owners ...

Read more: Kamoto Mine on Qualla

Image: Gécamines (Zairian company) | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/4/5/kamoto-mine-wp/kw45-kamoto-mine-the-reopening.mp3 0:06 3 full Kamoto Mine: The Luilu River https://qualla.com/kamoto-mine/ Photo credit Gécamines (Zairian company), Public domain. There is a cost to these numbers, and the Luilu River has paid most of it. From at least 2009 through 2012, the Luilu metallurgical plant discharged heavily acidic waste directly into the river - a Swiss NGO measured the effluent at pH 1.9, essentially battery acid. People living...

Read more: Kamoto Mine on Qualla

Image: Gécamines (Zairian company) | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/4/5/kamoto-mine-wp/kw45-kamoto-mine-the-luilu-river.mp3 0:06 4 full Kamoto Mine: Whose Minerals, Whose Lives https://qualla.com/kamoto-mine/ Photo credit Gécamines (Zairian company), Public domain. The Kamoto story cannot be told as a story about rocks. It is a story about who benefits from what the rocks contain. The Congolese state owns one-quarter of the operation through Gecamines, but a much larger share of Katanga's mineral wealth flows outward - to refineries in Asia...

Read more: Kamoto Mine on Qualla

Image: Gécamines (Zairian company) | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/4/5/kamoto-mine-wp/kw45-kamoto-mine-whose-minerals-whose-lives.mp3 0:06 5 full Kamoto Mine: From the Air https://qualla.com/kamoto-mine/ Photo credit Gécamines (Zairian company), Public domain. Approached from altitude, the Kolwezi region reads as a palette of rust and pale green - open pits cut into the plateau, tailings ponds shimmering in unnatural blues and grays, and the twin plumes of smoke and dust that mark the Luilu works. The landscape has the distinctive gram...

Read more: Kamoto Mine on Qualla

Image: Gécamines (Zairian company) | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/k/w/4/5/kamoto-mine-wp/kw45-kamoto-mine-from-the-air.mp3 0:06 6 full