ERG's Metalkol becomes first tailings site to win the Copper Mark

La Compagnie de Traitement des Rejets de Kingamyambo, better known as Metalkol, a subsidiary of Eurasian Resources Group, has been awarded the Copper Mark, becoming the first mining tailings-processing operation anywhere to achieve the recognition.

The company said the award confirms that Metalkol's operations meet internationally recognised ESG standards for responsible copper production. As one of the world's largest standalone cobalt suppliers, Metalkol also produces that critical mineral under the same standards. The Copper Mark is a voluntary, third-party assurance framework that verifies responsible production practices across the copper, molybdenum, nickel and zinc industries, aligning with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, ILO conventions, the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management and OECD minerals guidance.

Reprocessing a century of mining waste

Located in Lualaba province, Metalkol specialises in processing historic mining tailings from the Musonoi river basin and Kingamyambo, recovering copper and cobalt left behind by decades of earlier Katanga mining while contributing to environmental restoration of the sites. The framework evaluated Metalkol against 33 ESG criteria spanning environmental management and climate-risk mitigation, governance and business integrity, human rights and labour practices, and stakeholder engagement.

An unusual selling point in a scrutinised industry

The certification gave ERG a rare positive talking point at a time when DRC copper-cobalt mining more broadly faced intensifying scrutiny over environmental and human-rights practices, including investigations into pollution near rival operations such as CMOC's Tenke Fungurume. For Metalkol specifically, the tailings-reprocessing model offered an inherent sustainability advantage over conventional mining, since it recovers metal from waste already on the surface rather than opening new pits or extending underground workings. Whether the certification translated into commercial advantage — better offtake terms, easier financing, or preferential access to buyers demanding responsibly sourced copper and cobalt — would become clearer as ERG sought fresh Chinese investment to expand the site's capacity. The award also arrived as ERG's newly appointed chief executive, Shukhrat Ibragimov, was courting exactly the kind of international capital that responsible-sourcing credentials are designed to attract, giving Metalkol a marketing advantage over less-certified rivals in the same copperbelt.

Sources

• International Mining: ERG's Metalkol first tailings processing site to get The Copper Mark, 24 Feb 2026

Photo: Processing of copper-cobalt material at Musonoi Mine near Kolwezi, close to ERG's Metalkol tailings operation. Gécamines (Zairian company), Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.