CMOC Approves $1B Phase 2 Expansion at Kisanfu Mine
On 24 October 2025, China Molybdenum (CMOC) released its 3Q25 report and announced that its board had approved the expansion project in Kisanfu Mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Board has budgeted USD one billion to expand the annual output from 150,000 to 250,000 tonnes of copper.
CMOC (SHSE: 603993) justifies its decision by the positive outlook on the global copper market, propelled by the adoption of Electric Vehicles and the proliferation of AI data centers, all big consumers of copper. The International Energy Agency (IEA) even predicts a global shortage of copper of up to 40% by 2035.
In DRC, CMOC also owns the Tenke Fungurume Mine, which produces about 450,000 tonnes. Combined with the upgraded Kisanfu, the total copper production in DRC will exceed 700,000 tonnes.
According to CMOC’s quarterly report, it produced 543,376 tonnes for the first nine months of 2025, representing a 14.1% increase over the same period in 2024. Sales volume rose by 10.5% year-on-year to 510,312 tonnes and brought in a revenue of USD 5.3 billion, a 25.6% increase from a year earlier, at an average sale price of USD 10,409 per tonne.
However, due to operational expenses surging 21% to USD 2.4 billion, CMOC’s gross profit was just USD 2.8 billion, displaying only a modest 1.7% increase compared to the same period last year.
As a byproduct, cobalt production will also rise as well. In 2025, Kisanfu produced 82,000 tonnes of cobalt. After the expansion, it is estimated that Kisanfu will add another 30,000 tonnes of cobalt to its output. Typically, the copper-to-cobalt production ratio is 1:0.33, or for every tonne of cobalt produced, three tonnes of copper will be produced at the same time.
The Government of the DRC had a ban on cobalt export from 21 February to 12 October 2025. The embargo caused CMOC’s cobalt sales to drop sharply by 36% to 51,027 tonnes during the first three quarters in 2025. However, the average price of cobalt also rose sharply by 44% to reach USD 16,730 per tonne, thereby offsetting somewhat the loss in volume.
The Kisanfu Phase II Expansion Project plans to integrate the latest refining and separation technologies and the copper-cobalt production ratio might improve slightly to 1: 0.30. The new injection of money by CMOC will bring its total investments in the DRC to about USD 8 billion.