# Entreprise Générale du Cobalt The Congolese state's answer to artisanal cobalt: a [[Gécamines]] subsidiary holding a legal **monopoly on the purchase, processing, sale and export of all artisanally mined cobalt** in the country, across roughly 1,500 km² of designated artisanal zones. Created by decree in November 2019 and launched that December, with the monopoly operationalised in April 2021. **Trafigura** signed an offtake agreement in November 2020, financing controlled artisanal zones and purchasing stations in exchange for cobalt hydroxide; the NGO **Pact** supported the responsible-sourcing committee. ## The record For most of its existence, EGC was a formalisation programme that did not formalise anything. Two years after launch it was still not operational. The consequence documented at Mutoshi is instructive: when an earlier formalisation pilot ended and EGC failed to appear, miner numbers surged from about 3,000 to 15,000, with a single buyer setting prices. Congolese commentary through 2024 wrote it off as a second failure. Then the monopoly was finally enforced — in **February 2025**, **in the same instrument as a blanket suspension of all cobalt exports**, driven by the price collapse rather than by anything to do with mining conditions. See [[ARECOMS]]. Since then it has actually started producing. First output of about 1,000 tonnes in November 2025, **3,000 tonnes exported in the first half of 2026** via the Lobito Corridor, and a 2026 target of 5,000 tonnes cobalt-metal-equivalent. EGC is exempt from the ordinary quota pool and says it shipped its full allocation. In June 2026 it signed a memorandum with Trafigura and a US partner to build a direct US–DRC cobalt supply chain. ## How to read it Five years on, EGC is best described as a **state rent-capture instrument that has functioned as an export and marketing lever rather than the responsible-sourcing vehicle it was sold as.** It is now producing, which is more than could be said in 2024 — but its monopoly was activated for price support, and its exemption from quotas is a fiscal privilege rather than a due-diligence achievement. The broader point for [[Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining]]: formalisation schemes tend to succeed when they align with a state's revenue interest and stall when they depend on its human-rights interest. ## See also [[ARECOMS]] · [[Gécamines]] · [[Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining]] · [[Conflict Minerals Ecosystem]] · [[Conflict Minerals Hub]]