Investigation Says Uranium Left Congo Inside Cobalt Shipments Bound for China

Reporters estimate 2,000 to 5,000 tonnes may have been exported over two decades, and Kinshasa has asked the International Atomic Energy Agency for a technical mission.

A joint investigation by Lighthouse Reports, the Financial Times and Le Monde traces the possible export of uranium from the Democratic Republic of Congo to a confidential International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) memo obtained in 2024, according to RFI's account of the reporting. The journalists estimate that between 2,000 and 5,000 tonnes of uranium may have left the country over the past twenty years inside shipments declared as cobalt.

The most documented site is Tenke Fungurume Mining in Katanga, one of the largest cobalt producers in the country, owned by the American company Freeport-McMoRan until the Chinese group CMOC acquired it in 2016. Internal documents reviewed by the reporters record uranium-rich cobalt samples with a peak concentration of 1,100 parts per million in December 2016, around fifteen times the export limit cited in the investigation.

CMOC disputes the findings and denies carrying out any uranium separation or extraction in either the Democratic Republic of Congo or China.

The government in Kinshasa said it will test cobalt hydroxide exports and form a working group to assess research published on 30 July in Nature Communications, and plans to consult the IAEA about a technical support mission. Congo supplies the majority of the world's mined cobalt, and uranium is subject to international safeguards that cobalt is not.

Veracity: Plausible

74/100

If true, who benefits: Kinshasa gains leverage to renegotiate terms with Chinese operators, Western governments and non-Chinese cobalt producers gain an argument for de-risking battery supply chains, and the reporting consortium's finding strengthens the case for new safeguards on a trade that has none.
The nuance: The 2,000 to 5,000 tonne range comes from geochemical modelling rather than measured shipments, CMOC says compliance should be judged on the final dried product rather than intermediate samples, and no source establishes that any uranium was separated or diverted to a weapons programme.

An open-source-intelligence read of how likely this story is true with its real nuance, not a judgment of any outlet. It assesses the claim, weighing independent and adversarial reporting. How we label confidence.

What this means

If Congo introduces radiological testing at export, cobalt hydroxide cargoes face slower clearance and added assay costs, which raises input prices for battery cathode producers in China, South Korea and Europe. The reputational exposure applies to CMOC and to buyers who cannot document the origin of their material, while Congo gains leverage to renegotiate mining terms. Either the tests find nothing and the issue closes, or they confirm the concentrations and the trade acquires a safeguards regime it has never had.

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