A gallery collapse at Glencore's Kamoto Copper Company in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 19 people, the company said in a filing on the London Stock Exchange on June 27.
The miners were working illegally at a project, which has had on average 2,000 illegal incursions onto its jurisdiction per day, the company said adding that further casualties were a possibility.Glencore partially resumed sales and exports of the cobalt hydroxide produced at Kamoto in April this year, after high uranium levels forced a suspension from November 2018.
Glencore expects to produce about 26,000 tonnes of cobalt at Katanga in 2019. The majority of material is still being stockpiled, pending the implementation of an ion exchange to treat the high-uranium material on a long-term basis.
Artisanal cobalt production is believed to have dwindled significantly this year, however, due to falling prices.
Fastmarkets' price assessment for standard-grade cobalt stands at $13.75-15.35 per lb, in-warehouse as of June 27, down from highs of $43.70-44.45 per lb in April last year.
Cobalt hydroxide payables - the percentage of the standard-grade low paid to procure hydroxide - is at 62-63%, compared with 67-69% at the beginning of May
Additional reporting by Hassan Butt in London