The escalating conflict between government and rebel forces in North Kivu has disrupted supplies of tin concentrate from DR Congo, according to Bloomberg News.
Congo deployed 6,000 troops to North Kivu in July amid increasing tensions between the government and rebel leader Laurent Nkunda over his refusal to incorporate his mainly Tutsi soldiers into the national army. There have been intermittent clashes between the two sides since August 27.
“It’s difficult to get minerals to town, because the roads are being attacked,” Antoine Rugera, managing director of Societe Amur Sprl, said in an interview from Goma, the capital of the province. The company, which normally ships 100 metric tons of tin a month, is Congo’s biggest tin exporter. Meanwhile Mining and Processing Congo Sprl, a Goma-based cassiterite exporter, has halved its output in recent weeks due to the fighting, according to Managing Director Brian Christophers.
ITRI estimates that the DRC has produced some 7,000 – 8,000 tpy of tin-in-concentrates in recent years, with most of production coming from Kivu.