U.S. Firm Backed by Gates and Bezos Seeks Congo Lithium Exploration

By Charles Kennedy - Mar 21, 2025, 

U.S. firm KoBold Metals, whose backers include billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, is seeking to develop a huge hard rock lithium deposit in the Democratic Republic of Congo as the African country, which also has large cobalt, gold, and cobalt resources, is seeking a minerals partnership with the United States.

KoBold Metals has set sights on taking over a mining license for an area, the Manono project, which promises large lithium deposits. The U.S. firm “would welcome the opportunity to develop the asset,” Sandy Alexander, the chief legal officer of KoBold Metals, wrote in a letter to Congo’s president seen by Bloomberg News.

The Roche Dure resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo “has the potential to become a large-scale, long-lived lithium mine,” KoBold’s Alexander wrote in the letter to the chief of staff of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi dated January 21.

Investment in the deposit has been impeded by a legal dispute between Australian firm AVZ Minerals Ltd, China’s Zijin Mining Group Co, and the government of the DRC.

Two years ago, the DRC canceled AVZ Minerals’ exploration license. It divided the exploration area into two separate areas and handed one of them to the Chinese firm Zijin.  

AVZ Minerals earlier this month won a compensation case at the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) over the project.

AVZ Minerals also said that it is in discussions with several U.S.-based parties to raise funding for the lithium project.

KoBold says that it is using AI to explore for minerals. Currently, the company backed by U.S. entrepreneurs and billionaires is exploring more than 70 projects worldwide.

KoBold Metals could consider bringing in partners to fast-track the development of a new copper mine in another African country, Zambia, that could cost about $2 billion, the start-up’s co-founder and president Josh Goldman told Reuters last month.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

KOBOLD MINER