{"id":32606,"date":"2026-04-21T10:54:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=32606"},"modified":"2026-04-21T10:54:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:54:55","slug":"us-firm-in-key-drc-minerals-deal-overstated-its-mining-experience","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/us-firm-in-key-drc-minerals-deal-overstated-its-mining-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"‘US firm in key DRC minerals deal overstated its mining experience’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A United States (US) firm central to the US President Donald Trump administration’s push to secure critical minerals from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) overstated its mining experience,<\/span>\u00a0Reuters<\/i>\u00a0has found.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Virtus, which \u200bbought Chemaf’s mines in March for $30 million from the miner’s shareholders, stated on its website that it had a track record in DRC due to its operating of a copper and cobalt processing plant.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, \u200c<\/span>Reuters\u00a0<\/i>found Virtus didn’t acquire the plant and that the plant has been idle since 2012, according to company documents, court records related to the disputed sale of the plant and five sources with direct knowledge of the matter.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Chemaf deal represents the first physical investment from the US and DRC strategic minerals partnership signed last year.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Washington agreed to help DRC attract US investment in its mining sector in exchange for preferential access to critical minerals, in a bid to reduce China’s longstanding dominance of Congo’s mining industry.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A Senior DRC official familiar with the approval process \u200bsaid the security experience of Senior Virtus Executives was a factor in Kinshasa’s decision, as Washington has been mediating peace efforts between Congo and neighbouring Rwanda.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Virtus declined to provide an on the record comment about the extent of its \u200bexperience in the mining sector for this story.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The DRC’s mines ministry and state miner G\u00e9camines, which holds the lease to Chemaf’s mines ,did not respond to questions about Virtus’ track record \u2060in Congo and how the firm presented its credentials.<\/span><\/p>\n

–Reuters–<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21134,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-32606","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"US firm push to secure critical minerals from DRC","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32607,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32606\/revisions\/32607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}