GEMOLOGY
Rare pink diamond of 170 carats to go on sale this month

Bloomberg News | October 21, 2022 | 

The historic Lulo Rose diamond. (Image courtesy of Lucapa Diamond.)

A rare pink diamond is among the gems that will be offered for sale by Angola’s state-owned trading firm Sodiam later this month.


The 170-carat “Lulo Rose” may be the largest recovered in the last three centuries, Australian miner Lucapa Diamond Co. said in July. It will go on sale with other rough stones exclusively to registered customers from Oct. 24 through Nov. 14, Sodiam said in an emailed statement on Friday


The gems on sale will also include three single stones weighing between 112 carats and 160 carats.

(By Candido Mendes)

Suspected Islamist militants attack ruby mine in northeastern Mozambique

Bloomberg News | October 20, 2022 

Rubies from Montepuez, located at a geologically critical junction between

 the north-south trending Mozambique Belt and the east-west trending Zambezi Belt.

Shares in Gemfields Group Ltd. fell more than a fifth in Johannesburg after an attack by suspected Islamic State-linked insurgents on a ruby mine near its operations in northern Mozambique prompted the company to evacuate staff.


The raid took place on an operation 12 kilometers (7 miles) southeast of Gemfields’s 75%-owned Montepuez Ruby Mining Limitada, or MRM, early on Thursday, the company said in a statement. Its shares dropped as much as 21% — the most since Feb. 7 — and were 7.4% lower at 3.11 rand by 1:05 p.m. in Johannesburg.

“MRM has initiated the process of evacuating operational employees and contractors, and therefore mining operations at the site have ceased,” Gemfields said. “Security personnel and Mozambique police force remain on site and Mozambique military are arriving on site.”

The attack is the latest in five years of violence in northeastern Mozambique that’s left at least 4,332 people dead and displaced almost 1 million others. The conflict in the resource-rich Cabo Delgado province has also held up natural-gas projects worth tens of billions of dollars, even as prices for the fuel soared this year as European nations scramble to find alternative supplies because of Russia’s war with Ukraine.

While foreign troops have helped improve security in over the past year, the attack on the ruby mine shows small groups are still able to target foreign-owned businesses.

The mine that came under attack is owned by Gemrock, a unit of India-based DiaColor International DMCC, according to people familiar with the matter. Details of the attack are being verified, Gemfields said.

Cabo Delgado Governor Valige Tauabo didn’t answer a call to his mobile phone and didn’t respond to a request for comment sent by text message. DiaColor didn’t respond to a request for comment sent via its website.

(By Borges Nhamire and Matthew Hill)

Coal ash pollution affecting lakes for longer than anticipated
Staff Writer | October 20, 2022 | 5:05 am Energy USA Coal

Coal ash being released into an ash pond.

 (Reference image by India Water Portal, Flickr.)

Researchers at Duke University and Appalachian State University ran an analysis of sediments from five North Carolina lakes near coal-burning power plants and found that coal ash pollution of surface waters has been more persistent and widespread than was previously thought.


The findings show that large quantities of coal ash have been transferred and deposited in lake sediments since the beginning of coal operations in the state.

“The bottom sediments of a lake represent a complete history of what has fallen into the lake water and settled to the bottom,” Avner Vengosh, one of the scientists involved in the project, said in a media statement. “Using our age-dating methods, we were able to go back in time, in some cases even before the coal plant was built, and reconstruct the history of the lakes.”

Coal ash is the residual material from burning coal to generate electricity, and is known to contain lead, chromium, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, selenium and molybdenum, many of which have been tied to human cancers and other health effects.

According to Vengosh, the contaminants are not locked into the lake sediments. A chemical analysis of the pore water within the lake sediments indicated the metals leached out from the buried coal ash and could enter the aquatic food chain.

“These are recreational lakes,” said Zhen Wang, who led the study published in Environmental Science & Technology. “Some of them, like Hyco Lake, were originally built for the coal plant, but over the years, it has become very desirable real estate where people build their dream homes. It looks very pristine and beautiful, but if you dig in, you find piles of toxic coal ash.”

The five lakes in the study, however, were created for nearby coal plants: Hyco Lake and Mayo Lake, north of Durham in Person County; Belews Lake, northwest of Greensboro in Rockingham, Forsyth and Stokes Counties; Mountain Island Lake, northwest of Charlotte in Mecklenburg County; and Lake Sutton, northwest of Wilmington in Brunswick County. For comparison, the researchers also sampled Lake Waccamaw in Columbus County, west of Wilmington, a natural lake that was dammed in 1926 so it wouldn’t dry out during droughts.

Different types of coal ash

By looking at the microscope, the researchers were able to identify the different types of coal ash that were deposited over time in the lakes.

They noticed that at several of the sites, coal ash was initially dumped into the nearby lake. Over time, when the Clean Air Act was enforced and scrubbers were added to the coal plant smokestacks to catch fine particulates, the deposited coal ash changed and included higher proportions of small particles.

The tiny particles, however, contain the highest concentrations of toxic elements, which made contamination worse for the lakes.

The study authors suggest the coal ash could reach lakes by three possible routes: Atmospheric emissions of coal ash, particularly before the installation of the scrubbers, settled in nearby lands and was washed back into the lake by its watershed; climate events like tropical storms and hurricanes flooded and flushed the nearby coal ash impoundments to overflow into the nearby lakes, and ordinary flows of effluents from the coal ash ponds reached the lake as part of their routine operation.

“While previously we thought that lakes and groundwater are being contaminated by leaking or effluents discharge from of coal ash ponds, the new findings indicate that we have underestimated the environmental impact of coal ash,” Vengosh said. “We thought that the majority of the coal ash is restricted to coal ash ponds and landfills. Now we see it’s already in the open environment.”

The scientist and his colleagues warn that this is a much larger problem and with climate change it will only grow worse.

“We did a very detailed examination of five lakes, but there are numerous lakes or open water reservoirs next to coal plants not only in North Carolina but all over the country,” Vengosh said. “The phenomenon that we discovered probably applies to many other sites across the US and all of them are going to be vulnerable to more extreme weather events and flooding that we know is coming from global warming.”

Albemarle to stay in Europe if lithium declared hazardous by EU, CEO says

Reuters | October 19, 2022 

Image: Albemarle

Albemarle Corp, the world’s largest lithium producer, does not plan to leave Europe if the battery metal is declared a hazardous material by the European Union, though such a move would likely raise the company’s costs, its chief executive told Reuters on Wednesday.


The European Commission is weighing a proposal by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) that would classify lithium carbonate, chloride and hydroxide as dangerous for human health. Such a designation would likely require costly new packaging and storage to transport the metal, which is used make electric vehicle batteries.

A decision could come as soon as this week. Albemarle has been lobbying against the proposed rules, but believes that they’re likely to be approved, Kent Masters, Albemarle’s CEO, said in an interview.

“I think it’s going to add a little bureaucracy,” he said. “It changes the way you’d have to handle the material.”

Given Europe’s ambitious goals for electrification, though, it is unlikely the rules would slow down the continent’s EV adoption, he said.

Albemarle had warned earlier this year that the regulations might force it to close a processing plant in Germany. But Masters said on Wednesday that while the new rules would likely boost costs, demand on the continent would continue to fuel its business there. Masters added it’s too soon to say how much Albemarle’s costs could rise due to the regulations.

Europe produces very little lithium and must import the metal to processing facilities such as Albemarle’s.

“I don’t think it’s going to impact the growth of EVs” in Europe, Masters said. “Both the EU and the automakers really want to localize the supply chain.”

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Tesla confirms plans to build lithium refinery in Texas

Bloomberg News | October 19, 2022 |

Tesla Gigafactory in Texas. Credit: Tesla

Tesla Inc. is moving forward with plans to build a lithium refinery on the Texas Gulf Coast in a bid to gain more control over the supply chain for electric vehicle batteries.


Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk confirmed the move Wednesday on a conference call in answer to an analyst’s question on progress developing the company’s new 4680 battery cell technology.

The Austin, Texas-based company has been weighing the project for months, as Bloomberg News previously reported, but had been considering at least one other site in Louisiana. The company has told state regulators it plans to build a battery-grade lithium hydroxide refining facility near Corpus Christi that would process raw ore material into something more production-ready.

Musk called lithium prices “crazy expensive” and has repeatedly encouraged entrepreneurs to start refining lithium as a way to ease supply bottlenecks of the key material used in lithium-ion batteries.

(By Sean O’Kane)

Cirba Solutions gets $75 million in DOE funding to expand Li-ion battery recycling facility in Ohio

Staff Writer | October 19, 2022

Stock image.

The Biden administration said on Wednesday it is awarding $2.8 billion in grants to boost US production of electric vehicle batteries and the minerals used to build them, part of a bid to wean the country off supplies from China.


Cirba Solutions will receive approximately $75 million in federal funds to expand critical mineral upgrading assets at its lithium-ion processing facility in Lancaster, Ohio.

The largest cross-chemistry battery management and materials processor in the industry, Cirba is a recipient of the first set of projects funded by Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand domestic manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles and the electrical grid, with a focus on domestic processing of materials and components currently imported from other countries.

The funding announced Wednesday by the Department of Energy is the first phase of over $7 billion in total funding provided by the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the battery supply chain. DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) is responsible for strengthening and securing manufacturing and energy supply chains needed to modernize the nation’s energy infrastructure and support a clean and equitable energy transition.

Related: Heritage, Retriev, Battery Solutions merger creates circular supply chain in North America

At full operation, Cirba said its estimated 150,000-square-foot facility will produce enough battery-grade critical minerals used in cathode production to power more than 200,000 new electric vehicles annually.

The Lancaster facility will become one of the largest commercial-scale battery recycling facilities in North America and add 150m jobs to the local economy, the company said.

Before this federal funding award, Cirba Solutions announced it is investing more than $200 million to expand the Lancaster facility to collect, disassemble, shred, and upgrade the critical minerals from lithium-ion batteries to be reused to produce new lithium-ion batteries.

“This is a remarkable time for manufacturing in America, as President Biden’s Agenda and investments supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is American-made,” said US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in a statement. “Producing advanced batteries and components here at home will accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels to meet the strong demand for electric vehicles.”

“The time and cost to mine and process new materials is significant, and the need for these battery materials is becoming increasingly urgent,” Cirba CEO David Klanecky said. “Battery recycling is a viable solution to help meet the rising demand for EV batteries.”

In September, Cirba Solutions announced plans to construct a 75,000-square-foot facility in Eloy, Arizona to recycle lithium-ion batteries. The Eloy facility is expected to process enough battery material to power 50,000 EVs annually.

Talon confirms growth of Tamarack nickel project; awarded $114m gov’t funding

Staff Writer | October 19, 2022 

The Tamarack nickel project is located in Minnesota, 210 km north of Minneapolis and 89 km west of Duluth. (Image courtesy of Talon Metals.)

Talon Metals (TSX: TLO) has released an updated mineral resource estimate for its Tamarack nickel project located in central Minnesota, showing a near doubling of the indicated tonnage and a near seven-fold increase in the high-grade nickel content.


The total indicated resource now stands at approximately 8.56 million tonnes grading 1.73% nickel, containing 148,000 tonnes of nickel. This represents a 98% increase in contained nickel over the most recent estimate (January 2021). Total inferred resource is estimated at 8.46 million tonnes grading 0.83% nickel, containing 70,000 tonnes of nickel.

The high-grade massive sulphide or mixed massive sulphide portion has grown to 1.05 million tonnes grading 4.53% nickel plus in the indicated category, containing 47,000 tonnes of nickel. Compared with the previous estimate, the high-grade nickel has increased by 570% since the 2021 PEA.

According to Talon, the updated (and significantly increased) mineral resource is largely the result of the successful development and deployment of its advanced exploration system (AES), which enabled the company to rapidly conduct in-house exploration programs at the Tamarack project over the past two years.

Exploration using the AES resulted in two new high-grade nickel-copper discoveries, known as the CGO East and CGO West areas, north of the company’s previous resource area. The shallow, high-grade mineralization found within the CGO East and CGO West areas not only provide for growth in the size of the mineral resource (and ultimately resulted in the Tesla-Talon supply agreement), but is also expected to result in an accelerated development pathway for an underground mine, Talon says.

“During the successful discovery and delineation of the high-grade nickel CGO East and CGO West ore bodies, our team of drillers, geophysicists, geologists, engineers and environmental scientists developed a proprietary, advanced exploration system, which is a unique combination of equipment and methods for deployment along the 11-mile Tamarack intrusive complex and in Michigan,” explained CEO Henri van Rooyen.

“The 11-mile Tamarack intrusive complex and Michigan represent extremely prospective and underexplored high-grade nickel districts, primarily due to a lack of the consistent deployment of tailor-made mineral exploration technologies. The AES is to US Midcontinent Rift nickel discovery and delineation what Tesla is to EV: A revolution in successful innovation and deployment,” he added.

Talon’s AES is presently deployed to the north of the current mineral resource area, with a plan for drilling to the south of the mineral resource area during the winter period.

Additionally, the company is preparing for deployment of its AES in Michigan. Talon’s Michigan roll-out will consist of the use of new and innovative surface geophysical techniques on the back of the geological team’s unique understanding of prospective, high-grade nickel targets.

Located 210 km north of Minneapolis and 89 km west of Duluth, the Tamarack nickel project comprises a large land position (18 km of strike length) with high-grade intercepts outside the current resource area. Talon has an earn-in right to acquire up to 60% of the project, and currently owns 51%. Rio Tinto is its joint venture partner.
US infrastructure funding

Earlier in the day, Talon announced that the company been selected as a recipient of the first set of projects funded by US President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand domestic manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles.

Talon first submitted its application for the US government funding in July 2022. The application proposed an ore processing and tailings management facility located at an existing industrial brownfields site in Mercer county, North Dakota, that would receive feedstock from the Tamarack underground mine and other potential sources in North America. Acquisition of the preferred site in North Dakota is actively under negotiations.

According to the company, removing the processing facilities from the Tamarack mine site in Minnesota significantly reduces land disturbance and the scope of environmental review and permitting. Both facilities will undergo the science based permitting process in both states that include an opportunity for public comment and government-to-government consultations with tribal sovereign governments.

The proposed separation of mine and processing operations will create a new domestic battery grade nickel and iron production capability designed to meet the timelines set in both the Biden Administration’s national blueprint for lithium batteries, Talon says.

On a cost-share basis and subject to final negotiations, the US Department of Energy will provide a grant totalling $114 million grant (estimated to be 27% of total project cost) towards project construction and execution costs for the North Dakota battery minerals processing facility.

Shares of Talon Metals surged 19.2% as of market close Wednesday on the back of the project funding, giving the company a market capitalization of C$451.5 million.

Alcoa calls on US, allies to sanction ‘cheating’ Russian metal

Bloomberg News | October 19, 2022 | 

Image from Alcoa.

The chief executive of the largest US aluminum producer asked the US and its allies to take “urgent action” sanctioning Russian metal.


Alcoa Corp. CEO Roy Harvey said Wednesday afternoon the company supports sanctions, and that it makes “intuitive sense” that no more of the metal should be imported into the US.

The comments come a week after Bloomberg News reported that the Biden administration is considering an outright ban of Russian aluminum, a tariff so high that it would serve as an effective ban, or sanctions on Russia’s producer, United Co. Rusal International PJSC. Alcoa on Wednesday reported a surprising quarterly loss.

“Russian companies continue to produce and sell their metal while North American and European producers are curtailing smelters amidst declining aluminum prices, skyrocketing energy costs and supply chain issues,” Harvey said during a call with analysts. “And thus, we believe urgent action is necessary by the US and its allies.”

Harvey said there are ways market participants could try to transship around any sanctions, but added sanctions are the best way to stop “cheating.”

“That is the easiest solution to be able to try and bring a little bit of sensibility to this market and to try and build that sanctions regime in such a way that we’re also ensuring that there’s no cheating or games being played,” Harvey said.

(By Joe Deaux and Yvonne Yue Li)

CAPITAL STRIKE

Mining giants warn Chile mining royalty would impact investment

Reuters | October 19, 2022 | 

Chile’s constitutional assembly. (Image courtesy of Chile Convención, Facebook).

Mining giants BHP and Antofagasta Minerals said on Wednesday that a mining royalty bill in Chile would affect competitiveness and encourage miners to reevaluate investments.


Chile is the world’s top copper producing nation and the government has proposed a royalty with a portion based on sales and the other subject to profitability, which progresses as the price of copper increases.


Speaking to Chile’s Congress, BHP’s vice president of corporate affairs for the Americas, Rene Muga, said the current bill would impact the company’s competitiveness abroad and negatively impact its own operations in other countries.

“It is our duty to warn that in a highly competitive global world, Chile cannot disproportionately increase its taxes without significantly affecting investment levels,” Muga said.

He added that the initiative would lead the mining company to reconsider an announced investment portfolio of $10 billion, since it was designed “without considering such an excessive tax burden increase.”

For his part, the vice president of corporate affairs of Antofagasta Minerals, Rene Aguilar, pointed out that with the proposed changes, total taxation would exceed 48%, putting it on par with high-tax countries such as Congo, Mongolia and Zambia.

“It is essential to consider the depreciation of investments in the calculation of mining income,” Aguilar said. “This is a very relevant point, especially for groups like Antofagasta, which has a potential investment portfolio of close to $5 billion for the coming years.”

Both company representatives acknowledged that there’s room for more contribution from the mining sector, but pushed for collaborative agreements that maintain business sustainability.

Other global mining giants like state-owned Codelco, Glencore, Anglo American and Freeport-McMoRan also operate in Chile.

(By Fabian Cambero and Alexander Villegas; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Automakers need more time to meet US minerals requirements for EVs – execs

Reuters | October 19, 2022 | 

Volkswagen chairman Volkswagen Dr. Herbert Diess 

presents the ID. lineup based on the MEB platform. 

Credit: Wikipedia

US legislators need to give automakers operating in the United States more time to achieve the required sourcing levels of battery minerals used in electric vehicles to qualify for federal tax incentives, several industry executives said on Wednesday.


The Inflation Reduction Act, as currently written, requires automakers to have 50% of critical minerals used in EV batteries come from North America or US allies by 2024, rising to 80% by the end of 2026. Volkswagen Americas Chief Executive Pablo Di Si said the industry cannot move that fast.

“All of us source from different parts of the world and changing these long-term contracts, you don’t do that from one day to the next. We have 10, 15, 20-year commitments,” Di Si said at the Reuters Events auto conference in Detroit.

US lawmakers need to create a more phased-in process that goes out to 2030 instead, he and Hyundai Motor Co Chief Operating Officer Jose Munoz said at the Reuters event.

“When we saw the IRA, we were not happy,” Munoz said in a separate interview, referring to the new law.

“We believe it’s unfair,” he added, pointing out that none of the South Korean automaker’s EVs qualify for the credit.

Hyundai will break ground next week on a $5.5 billion EV plant in Georgia that will create thousands of jobs. Munoz said US legislators should offer companies investing in the United States some type of waiver or a longer transition period.

Automakers are trying to figure out how their vehicles will meet the new law’s requirements to qualify for EV tax credits.

Signed into law in August by US President Joe Biden, the IRA contains incentives designed to help meet his administration’s goals of halving US carbon emissions by 2030 and getting to net-zero emissions by 2050.

Under the $430 billion law, rules governing the current $7,500 EV tax credit aimed at persuading consumers to buy the vehicles will be replaced by incentives designed to bring more battery and EV manufacturing into the United States. The domestic content requirements will ratchet up over the next six years.

New restrictions on battery sourcing and critical minerals, along with price caps and income caps, take effect on Jan. 1, which will potentially make all current EVs ineligible for the full $7,500 credit.

Details of the act are still being ironed out and the US Treasury is currently taking comments on how to implement the rules around the EV tax credits.

“I don’t think that you can transform the mineral production and extraction within the next two to three years,” Di Si said on Wednesday in Detroit. “You cannot change the sources from Congo, China and other places within two to three years.”

VW America’s chief purchasing officer, Inga von Seelen, said on Tuesday at the Reuters conference that the German automaker has to source battery materials from where they are available.

VW has a supply agreement for batteries from an SK Innovation plant in the US state of Georgia and in August struck a battery materials cooperation agreement with mineral-rich Canada in a move to secure access to lithium, nickel and cobalt.

In South Carolina on Wednesday to announce a $1.7 billion investment to build EVs in the United States, BMW CEO Oliver Zipse was also critical of the new law, telling Reuters no region can be independent especially for raw materials for EVs.

The US “should have a regulation that is not completely unrealistic.” He also warned the new law could inhibit investments.

Stellantis North American Chief Operating officer Mark Stewart on Tuesday at the Reuters conference said the automaker’s purchasing teams are working to meet the new law’s requirements.

“We have … very active conversations to secure capacity around the world, in the free trade zones, to make sure we’re covered all the way through 2030,” he said.

Stewart added it is crucial to offer vehicles that most people can afford.

“At the end of the day, if we can’t make this transition to what consumers can afford, the industry’s going to collapse on itself,” he said. “We have to find a way to bring affordable tech into the equation.”

(By Ben Klayman, Joseph White and David Shepardson; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
JPMorgan must face suit by fired trader claiming retaliation

Bloomberg News | October 18, 2022 | 

JPMorgan Chase & Co. must face a suit from a former trader who claims he was fired for cooperating with US prosecutors probing illegal spoof trades at the bank’s precious-metals trading business, a federal judge in New York ruled.


Donald Turnbull was fired in 2019, at a time when the bank also was cooperating with the government probe. JPMorgan, the largest US bank, agreed in 2020 to pay more than $920 million to resolve government claims that its trading desks were spoofing markets in precious metals and treasuries.

US District Judge John G. Koeltl rejected JPMorgan’s request to dismiss the lawsuit in a ruling dated Monday.

The judge said Turnbull’s claim that he was fired just 24 days after an interview in which JPMorgan learned he had told US Justice Department investigators about “severe, chronic institutional failures” at the bank “strongly suggests that the plaintiff’s protected activity contributed to his termination.”

JPMorgan declined to comment on the ruling.

Turnbull claims JPMorgan told him he was being fired over 14 trading sequences that could be considered spoofing. Meanwhile, other traders — including one who was later indicted for 38,146 spoofing sequences — weren’t fired until criminal charges against them became public. According to Turnbull, that shows the real motivation for his firing was to discredit him.

Koeltl threw out Turnbull’s initial lawsuit in March, but allowed the former trader to file an amended complaint. The judge ruled that the new complaint is “plausible on its face,” a decision that allows both sides to go forward with evidence gathering.

The US Justice Department has been cracking down on market manipulation cases during the past decade, which has led to settlements with several banks and criminal cases against their employees.

In August, the former head of the JPMorgan’s precious-metals business, Michael Nowak, and his top trader, Gregg Smith, were found guilty of fraud and other charges by a jury in Chicago.

The case is Turnbull v. JPMorgan Chase, 21-cv-3217, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

(By Steve Stroth and Bob Van Voris)

OKAPI AN EARLY XX CENTURY CRYPTID


Congolese NGOs decry mining in main refuge of ‘Africa’s unicorn’

Reuters | October 18, 2022 | 

Okapi Wildlife Reserve. Credit: Wikipedia

Illegal gold mining is destroying tracts of pristine rainforest in Congo’s Okapi Wildlife Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site meant to be a haven for the endangered mammal nicknamed Africa’s unicorn, environmental organizations warned on Tuesday.


Industrial activities are supposed to be banned in the 13,000 square kilometers of the reserve in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo. Aerial photo evidence shows mining has persisted, the civil society groups said at a joint news conference to mark the international day of the okapi.


The Council for Environmental Defense through Legality and Traceability (CODELT) said the ongoing destruction was at odds with the authorities’ bid to promote Congo as a major player in the global fight to curb climate change thanks to its majority share of the Congo basin rainforest – the second-largest in the world.

CODELT and regional environmental group ACEDH shared photos they said were proof that miners were gouging out swathes of jungle along the Ituri river, which loops through the southern part of the reserve that is also home to endangered forest elephants and chimpanzees.

“It’s incomprehensible to see this in a country where the (the government) … presents the country internationally as a ‘solution country’,” said CODELT’s Principal Technical Advisor Augustin Mpoyi.

The environment ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The NGOs blamed a Chinese company called Kimia Mining, which has previously been accused of flouting a ban on river-dredging in Ituri province and other mining regulations, according to a 2016 report by a UN Group of Experts.

There was no available contact information to reach Kimia Mining for comment.

The authorities have vowed to clean up their management and protection of Congo’s forests, where illegal activities have long flourished due to corruption and the logistical challenge of enforcing weak regulations in remote and often conflict-hit areas.

Human disturbances link to conflicts, mining and hunting are among the main threats to okapi, of which fewer than 50,000 are estimated to remain in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Also known as zebra giraffes due to their zebra striped hindquarters and longish necks, okapis were placed on the IUCN’s Red List of species at risk of extinction in 2015.

Congo is currently at loggerheads with conservationists and scientists over its plan to open other parts of its rainforest and peatlands to oil and gas drilling.

(Reporting by Erikas Mwisi Kambale, Stanis Bujakera and Djaffar Al-Katanty; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Bill Berkrot)