Sub-Saharan Africa is home to around 30% of proven global critical mineral reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) produces around 70% of cobalt globally, while South Africa, Gabon and Ghana collectively produce 60% of global manganese. Elsewhere, Zimbabwe, the DRC and Mali have unexplored lithium deposits.
With a wealth of the most critical of critical minerals, Africa could profit immensely from the energy transition. Lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage solutions, for instance, use lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt and manganese – all of which the continent has an abundance of.
Africa’s deposits represent a significant business opportunity, and several international players are trying to cash in. China has long been the dominant figure in Africa’s critical minerals picture, but as the energy transition heats up, the US is looking to reestablish its position and secure much-needed supplies through peace deals, memorandums and investments. There are also new actors waiting in the wings, with several European players – the EU, the UK and Norway – already poised to profit from Tanzania’s nickel through the 2024’s Minerals Security Partnership.
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As the energy transition continues to drive demand for key commodities, the competition for resources is on. China and the US will battle for dominance, but to what extent Africa can attract the right international investments, support local community development and monetise its capital remains to be seen.
As TS Lombard macro-economist Stephen Blitz describes it: “Africa is having its moment of leverage.”
China’s strategy: the BRI and global refining dominance
China’s global trade strategy has been defined by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) since it was first considered by Chinese president Xi Jinping in 2013. The initiative is designed to enable large-scale infrastructure development and increase Chinese trade, investment and influence across South East Asia, Africa and Europe.
In Africa specifically, the BRI includes minerals-for-infrastructure deals such as the Sicomines project in the DRC. Established in 2008, the deal gave Chinese investors a 68% stake in the copper-cobalt joint-venture; in return, investors would use mining revenues to finance roads and hospitals.
CEO of African banking and financial services conglomerate Absa International, Cheryl Buss, tells Mining Technology that: “China saw Africa as a key resource provider in terms of critical minerals, and its strategy was to secure sites and to develop mining there. If we look at the overall strategy though, it has been around the export or import of raw materials.”
She explains that 77% of Africa’s resources are exported in a raw material state, offering huge revenue opportunities to China, which dominates the world’s refinery stage. The International Energy Agency reports that it is the leading refiner in 19 out of 20 important strategic minerals, with an average market share of 70%.
China is winning big as the dominant player in Africa, and it knows it. Broadly, Chinese investment across Africa reached $3.37bn (23.84bn yuan) in 2024, with the top five destinations being South Africa (the biggest manganese producer globally), Mozambique (the third-largest graphite producer), Niger (home to significant lithium deposits), Algeria (which potentially has lithium) and Mauritius.
John Hopkins’ China Africa Research Initiative reported that, as of end of 2024, 23% of China’s total investment stock in Africa was in the mining sector, the second-biggest investment sector after construction, which accounted for 31.8%.
However, the story isn’t linear, and China has left the door open for other players. BRI loans have fluctuated since the Covid-19 pandemic, following a peak in 2018, when they reached $5.39bn. Investment reached its lowest level in more than a decade in 2022, when it dropped to $1.81bn; it recovered to $3.96bn in 2023 but declined again to $3.37bn in 2024.
Considering the fluctuations, Yun Sun, senior fellow and director of the China Programme at the Stimson Centre, tells Mining Technology that “the assumption was that these projects would generate enough revenue to repay the loans and generate more GDP [gross domestic product] growth, but Covid-19 made that exceedingly difficult, because the commodity prices, jobs and general environment became so volatile”.
The pandemic caused global economic disruption – not least to China – and rocked global supply chains. Since then, China has undertaken fewer projects and reduced its lending, although it retains its dominance in Africa’s critical mineral scene.
For Buss, China’s extractive approach represents a missed opportunity for Africa. “How do you ensure your long-term sustainable development, if all your natural resources are just being exported?
“We need to see the creation of value by adjusting onshore. It is vital for the stimulation, the growth, the development and the sustainability of the communities in these various African countries,” she says.
The US strategy: the Lobito Corridor, the Minerals Security Partnership and Trump
The US needs critical minerals for the energy transition, but against the backdrop of China’s booming battery and chip manufacturing sectors, mineral production is increasingly viewed as a national security issue. US strategy is therefore as much about China as it is about Africa.
The US was 100% reliant on imports for 15 mineral commodities in 2024, including transition-critical graphite and manganese. Despite tariffs and rule packages designed to limit US reliance on China, it imported 43% of its graphite supplies from its competitor. The US also imported much of its antimony, arsenic, bismuth, tantalum, tungsten and yttrium from China, all of which feature on the US Geological Survey’s critical minerals list.
Outside of China, the US also relied on imports for 76% of its cobalt, more than 50% of its lithium and 45% of its copper.
Blitz calls the US-Africa mineral strategy under President Donald Trump “transactional”, describing “an ongoing strategy to boost sourcing of critical minerals from Africa in an effort to diversify sourcing [away from China] and have secure supply chains”.
In real terms, the strategy has manifested as a flurry of agreements between the US and African nations. “The US is building African and inter-African relationships, such as the DRC and Rwanda truce that Trump brokered in June. The truce was framed to stabilise cobalt and lithium corridors,” says Blitz.
Looking to secure cobalt and copper supplies, President Trump also orchestrated a trilateral memorandum of understanding with the DRC and Zambia, seeking to “facilitate the development of an integrated value chain for the production of electric vehicle batteries in the DRC and Zambia, ranging from raw material extraction, to processing, manufacturing and assembly”.
US interest in Africa’s critical minerals predates Trump, however. Under President Biden, the US agreed to join the EU and financial partners to fund the Lobito Corridor project. The railway infrastructure project will connect Angola’s Lobito port with mineral-rich Zambia and the DRC, improving mineral extraction and transportation infrastructure.
The Minerals Security Partnership was also launched under Biden to create resilient supply chains around the production, processing and recycling of critical minerals, while supporting a just energy transition through rigorous environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards.
“The Biden approach, not surprisingly, tried to balance needs to secure minerals with ESG considerations, including the human rights records in these African countries,” says Blitz.
However, he also notes that, like China, Biden supported domestic interests: “From a strategic standpoint, his funding was to support downstream processing – that is bolster domestic production capabilities.” In 2022, Biden used the Defence Production Act to increase federal support for domestic mining, beneficiation and critical mineral processing, remarking that “we need to end our long-term reliance on China and other countries for inputs that will power the future”.
Through Biden and Trump, the US has retained the same ambition: expanding US access to Africa’s mineral supplies. Considering it a matter of national security, the US is not only looking to secure new critical mineral opportunities, but also to reduce its dependence on its competitor and pre-empt China’s expansion.
How can Africa position itself for success?
Geopolitical rivalries, national security interests and the soaring demand for minerals are intersecting to create a critical moment for Africa’s minerals sector.
The world’s wealthiest economies want in on the profit, and Sun says: “It is good for Africa that they will have options. China used to be the only option. Now, it is about whether they make use of the opportunity as the US enters the market; however, we know that, historically, African governments are not famous for capitalising on these opportunities well.”
It is a point echoed by Blitz: “There is still a question as to how much volume of rare earth minerals, refined or raw, Africa can ultimately deliver. Scott Bessent [US Secretary of the Treasury] has said that the US has a two-year target to reduce its dependence on China. Africa is part of that strategy but not all of it,” he warns.
To maximise on returns from international investment, Africa must look like an attractive opportunity. Governments must balance infrastructure needs with appropriate trade frameworks long-term, which Buss says must offer equitable benefit-sharing partnerships and focus on retaining value locally.
“Trade from Africa has increased, but it is the wrong type of trade,” she says. “Not much has shifted, because we need to improve beneficiation and manufacturing onshore.”
The current limited manufacturing capability across the African continent has shaped the region’s focus on raw material export, but Buss calls for an increase in domestic industrial production, refinery and manufacturing to offer value chain addition for producing countries. She says local refineries would “feed rural economic development and community development and stimulate the increasing middle class”.
Africa will also benefit from growing internal trade, and frameworks are beginning to take shape. In 2021, trading began under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), connecting 1.3 billion people across 55 countries in an intra-Africa single market for goods and services. AfCFTA’s member countries are gradually removing tariffs on a minimum of 97% of intra-AfCFTA trade, and exports of minerals to AfCFTA countries is expected to increase 6% by 2035, from 2014 levels. In comparison, exports to non-AfCFTA countries are expected to decrease by 1%.
Internal trade will enable Africa to future-proof its minerals sector, but there is currently little, and the implementation of AfCFTA is slow. Fragmented markets and an historic reliance on external trade mean that intra-Africa trading is in its early days; Namibia drew attention in June with the first intra-Africa trade under AfCFTA: a 25,000-tonne shipment of salt, sent to Nigeria.
“There are competing priorities from a China and US perspective, but where does that leave Africa?” asks Buss. “Southern Africa holds 30% of the volume of critical mineral reserves, and its strategies will emerge around that.”
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