With 40 active exploration projects for copper and 19 for lithium on the continent, according to the update published last month of Critical Minerals: The Pivotal Outlook, it’s clear these two critical minerals are Africa’s most wanted. They are followed by platinum (14 projects), nickel (13) and graphite (11), rounding out the top five.

According to the data, when all phases of development are combined (exploration, development, production, pending), copper alone accounts for 187 projects, or almost 40% of all critical mineral projects in Africa, as defined by the authors of the study. This puts it far ahead of platinum (66) and cobalt (60).

Africa’s copper and lithium potential

The attraction for copper and lithium can be explained by a favourable economic climate, with the price of copper approaching $10,000 per tonne, close to the all-time high of $10,845 set in March 2022. But it is also due to an important trend: as a conductive metal, copper is essential to the energy transition as economies move away from fossil fuels towards low-carbon electricity.

And Africa is at the heart of this race for the metal. Recently, Ivanhoe Mines began exploring in Angola, while Kobold Metals, a start-up backed by Bill Gates among others, announced a major copper discovery in Zambia.

Meanwhile, Eurasian Resources Group has pledged $800m to relaunch the Comide mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while MMG has pledged $1.9bn to buy the Khoemacau site in Botswana. American support for the Lobito Corridor, a railway linking DRC to the Angolan coast, is explained in particular by the need to transport copper to the United States more quickly.

DRC faces competition

The DRC is no longer the only country on the continent being targeted for copper. Zambia and Botswana are also in line, as is the ‘new frontier’ of Angola. Namibia, considered stable, has the most exploration projects on the continent, all critical minerals combined. But in line with the current trend, copper and lithium are at the heart of ongoing research in the southern African state.

At a time when tensions between Kigali and Kinshasa are at their highest, against a backdrop of accusations of pillage of resources (mainly tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold – but not the critical minerals examined by the EY/Africa Business+study), Rwanda has managed to attract interest.

Rio Tinto has signed an agreement to explore the lithium potential of the land of a thousand hills, and the European Union is going to work with Kigali on critical minerals. But at a time when the search for major new deposits of copper, lithium and other critical minerals is in full swing across Africa, the competition will not be confined to Kigali and Kinshasa in the coming months.

A twice annual overview

Critical Minerals: The Pivotal Outlook is the result of a joint project between Africa Business+ and accountancy firm EY. It is a unique dashboard, updated every six months, that reveals the continent’s major projects in eight minerals that are essential to the energy transition: bauxite, cobalt, copper, graphite, lithium, manganese, nickel and platinum.

Comprising an interactive map, a table and dynamic graphs, this tool details the strategic elements of these projects: current status, shareholding, volume of resources, reserves and annual production, and whether or not the operator is seeking investment.