[SMM Analysis] US Launches "Gold Reserve Plan", Adding Uncertainty to DRC Cobalt Ore Supply

This article analyzes the following three aspects: first, interpreting the strategic implications of the US's latest "Project Vault"; second, summarizing the progress of cooperation between the US and the government of the DRC in cobalt resource development; and third, exploring the main risks and feasible countermeasures for China's cobalt market amid intensifying mineral competition.

I. US "Project Vault": Strategic Reserve Upgrade, Civilian Needs Integrated into the System

On February 2, 2026, US President Donald Trump announced the launch of "Project Vault," a strategic critical minerals reserve plan with a total value of $12 billion. The project will utilize a $10 billion loan from the US Export-Import Bank, combined with $1.67 billion in private capital, to jointly procure and reserve critical minerals for the automotive manufacturing, technology, and other key industrial sectors. Although the US has maintained a strategic mineral reserve for national defense, it had not systematically covered civilian industrial needs. This policy, for the first time, introduces a private sector reserve mechanism, aiming to establish reliable inventories of resources essential for US industries such as automobiles, electronics, batteries, and aerospace, including nickel, cobalt, lithium, and rare earths. Currently, three large traders—Hartree Partners LP, Traxys North America LLC, and Mercuria Energy Group—have signed agreements to act as procurement executors, responsible for specific raw material acquisitions.

Although the US possesses some domestic critical mineral resources, its processing and deep-processing capabilities still cannot fully replace external supply chains. Particularly for new energy metals like nickel, cobalt, and lithium, as well as rare earths, the US remains highly dependent on supplies from countries such as Australia, the DRC, and China. From a long-term strategic perspective, the plan aims to enhance the US's autonomous voice in the critical minerals sector, reduce supply chain dependence on China, and continue accelerating its "de-risking" industrial policy trajectory.

It is noteworthy that, in addition to this plan, the US will also host the first Ministerial Meeting on Critical Minerals in Washington on February 4, with several African resource-rich countries including the DRC, Kenya, and Guinea, as well as allies such as Japan, Australia, and Canada, having confirmed their attendance.

II. US and the DRC: From Resource Cooperation to Strategic Alignment

Over the past two decades, China has established a significant advantage in the DRC's mineral development sector through models like the "resources-for-infrastructure" agreement, exemplified by the 2007 China-DRC Mining Cooperation Agreement, and still controls approximately 80% of local mining production. However, since Trump's return to the White House, the US has gradually deepened cooperation with the DRC in the mineral sector through dual-track diplomatic and economic engagement.

In June 2025, under US mediation, the DRC and Rwanda signed a peace agreement, which implicitly included critical minerals clauses, promoting the establishment of a transparent and standardized "mine-to-processing" end-to-end value chain. It linked both countries as partners with the US government and investors, effectively forming a "minerals-for-security" transactional framework.

In December 2025, the US and the DRC further signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement, focusing on three major directions in mineral cooperation:

1. The US and the DRC established a strategic partnership. The DRC should designate key mineral assets and an initial list of unlicensed exploration areas as part of the Strategic Asset Reserve (SAR) and provide this list to the established joint-stock company within 30 days after the agreement takes effect.

2. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and its state-owned enterprises plan to use their equity and contractual marketing rights related to critical mineral production to provide mining access to Americans and related persons, and for use in the US market. To achieve this, the DRC and its state-owned enterprises should prioritize offering bids for SAR projects and Qualified Strategic Projects (QSPs) to Americans and related persons on commercially comparable terms, ensuring these minerals are used by the US market.

3. The two sides plan to cooperate in enhancing the competitiveness of the Sakania-Lobito Corridor, including increasing the volume of critical minerals exported by the DRC through this corridor under market conditions. For this purpose, the DRC and its state-owned enterprises plan to export at least 50% of copper, 90% of zinc concentrates, and 30% of cobalt via the Sakania-Lobito Corridor within five years.

 In January 2026, the DRC announced that it submitted a targeted mineral project list to the US, covering manganese ore, copper-cobalt, gold, and lithium projects, opening these projects for US investment. This includes the Mutoshi copper-cobalt project owned by the DRC's state-owned mining giant Gecamines, with an annual designed capacity of 50,000 mt of copper and 16,000 mt of cobalt.

III. Risk Overlap: Pressure on China’s Cobalt Supply Chain and Response Strategies

Before the DRC implemented the cobalt export ban in February 2025, cobalt intermediate products from the country accounted for about 80% of China’s cobalt raw material supply. The ban has already caused supply chain tensions for many domestic enterprises. Against the backdrop that cobalt mines in the DRC have not yet resumed large-scale exports, the continued deepening of US-DRC cooperation is likely to further increase the geopolitical risks for China’s cobalt resource imports from the DRC, exacerbating structural shortages of cobalt raw materials in China in 2026.

According to the export quota allocation details released by the DRC in October 2025, Chinese enterprises obtained only about 56% of the total basic quota, far below the actual domestic demand, leaving the initiative in raw material supply partially constrained by overseas forces. With the advancement of cooperation between the US and the DRC in the mineral resources sector, Chinese enterprises may even face the dilemma of being unable to obtain strategic quotas in the future. In the allocation of basic quotas, apart from Glencore, most overseas miners are negotiating supply agreements with US-affiliated traders such as Mercuria, and the final destination of these resources remains uncertain.

Under these circumstances, Chinese enterprises urgently need to diversify their resource sources to reduce the risk of concentrated supply. Currently, the most important alternative path is to accelerate the deployment in the Indonesian market by acquiring mining rights or establishing strategic cooperation with local miners to secure resources. In recent years, hydrometallurgy projects (MHP) in Indonesia have been in a period of rapid capacity expansion, with several large projects planned to commence production and export to China in 2026 alone, expected to bring nearly 20,000 mt in metal content of cobalt supply as a supplement. Additionally, enterprises can maintain production flexibility by increasing the production of recycled cobalt and promoting the preparation of cobalt salts from refined cobalt through acid dissolution. However, limited by the stock of social scrap and the scale of refined cobalt inventory, this part of the supply can only serve as a temporary supplement and cannot fundamentally alleviate the pressure of resource shortages.

Xiao Wenhao SMM Cobalt Analyst +86 16621140365