One of the most important contributions SRK has made to mining development in the DRC – even before the establishment of its Lubumbashi office in 2010 – is the quality and integrity of its work. In the geological field, for instance, it is vital that the exploration and mining data generated by mining operations is accurately reported in line with accepted standards.
Professional organisations of Congolese scientists and engineers are growing, leading to the need for improved control of their professional practice. These organisations are even starting to consider developing a reporting code specific to the DRC, for instance. For now, though, there are the SAMREC and SAMVAL codes for resource and reserve estimation and valuation. These fall under the auspices of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM), which covers the entire austral region of Africa including DRC.
A reporting code guides companies in meeting standardised data collection procedures, as well as how results from that data are processed and published. This is important when it comes to auditing, and to proving that data is verified – especially for funding of mining projects.
For this reason, the question of standards, compliance and data veracity are directly linked to the future of mining in the DRC. Financing is a serious challenge to mineral development in the country, as there are few internal funding sources and no local stock exchange. Capital must be therefore be raised outside the country, and it is often the risk-tolerant junior mining companies that have embarked on exploration programmes.
Ideally, the country would develop an inventory of unexplored mineral resources, requiring government to initiate large prospecting campaigns. The resulting data could then be made available to mining companies wishing to undertake exploitation works. Whichever route is taken, the key consideration remains the trust of investors in the veracity of the information which is published on exploration and mining results. The past two decades have been characterised by the privatisation of mines by the Congolese government; with this privatisation, codification has been increasingly required by investors who need to finance their projects.
With most investors being from foreign countries, they have relied on consultants to sign off on exploration data in terms of the geocodes relevant to the country on whose stock exchange they were listed. Today, legislation in the DRC requires that more professional services are conducted by companies which are owned locally. This also highlights the need for local geological professionals to be aligning their work to the relevant geocode.
While state-owned mining companies like Gécamines had their own internal policies regarding geological assessment, international investors usually require alignment with a code recognised by the Committee for Mineral Reserves International Reporting Standards (CRIRSCO).
DRC is well-known for its minerals, with world-class deposits not just in copper and cobalt but in tin, tantalum and lithium in the east, gold in the north-east, and diamonds in the central zone. This wide range of targets still hold great potential for large and small mining companies, as long as there is confidence at the exploration stage. While it has traditionally served the major mining players, SRK is reaching out to smaller operations too – and is working with state-owned mining companies to review results for optimal transparency.
