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SA plans first mine investment in Congo since dispute

Johannesburg - South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation said it plans to buy a stake in Alphamin Resources Corporation, its first investment in Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining industry since a dispute over a cancelled project in 2010.

Alphamin is developing the Bisie tin mine in Congo’s eastern North Kivu province, where armed groups have controlled the area’s biggest mine on and off for years.

“We did our due diligence,” Abel Malinga, head of mining and metals at the IDC, said in a Thursday interview in Johannesburg. “We never run away from challenges.”

The South African development finance institution’s last mining asset in Congo, Africa’s biggest producer of tin and copper, was a stake in First Quantum Minerals’s Kolwezi copper project in the southern Katanga province.

After the government cancelled First Quantum’s rights to the project, the company settled a case against Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, which had bought the disputed asset.

"We did get our money back," Malinga said of the settlement.

The IDC’s return to Congo coincides with that of the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private investment arm, which was also a partner in First Quantum’s project.

Tiger Resources on Friday announced that the IFC would provide $40.5m for its Kipoi copper project in Katanga.

“We are always in discussion with potential funders and those who can advance the project,” Alphamin Chief Executive Officer Boris Kamstra said by phone. “To that extent, discussions are always ongoing with our shareholders, with the IDC and with others.”

Congo’s east has been restive for about two decades, with regular clashes between the army and various rebels groups in the forested hills of the regions. Two soldiers were killed in an attack on the airport of Goma, the capital of North Kivu, in June.

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