According to CMOC's official WeChat account, the Copper Mark organization recently formally notified CMOC that its TFM copper-cobalt mine operating in the DRC has passed the Copper Mark re-audit, with all areas currently assessed as "Fully Met." Consequently, TFM has become the first mine in Africa to receive the Copper Mark certification and the first in Africa to achieve a "Fully Met" rating across all standards of the Copper Mark.
The Copper Mark is a leading assurance system in the industry, designed to meet the growing international demands for responsible sourcing and production, and to promote responsible practices within the copper, molybdenum, nickel, and zinc value chains. It conducts independent third-party assessments of mines and smelters to verify whether each production site complies with responsible production practice requirements. The Copper Mark's requirements cover all major environmental, social, and governance issues. Copper producers that obtain the Copper Mark will automatically meet all three requirements of the London Metal Exchange's (LME) responsible sourcing criteria, namely responsible sourcing, environment, and occupational health and safety management systems.
Liang Wei, CMOC's ESG Vice President, explained that the Copper Mark is a voluntary program open to all industry members. In early 2024, TFM passed the initial Copper Mark audit. In August 2025, TFM completed the re-audit process. The Copper Mark's assurance process uses 32 different criteria from the Responsible Minerals Initiative's (RMI) Risk Readiness Assessment (RRA), covering topics such as legal compliance, labor relations, environmental management, greenhouse gas emissions, water management, mine closure and reclamation, community development, grievance mechanisms, stakeholder communication, and mineral supply chain due diligence. This encompasses the entire production process of copper-cobalt products, from mining and beneficiation to smelting.
"The Copper Mark certification is a key task for CMOC in practicing high-standard ESG principles and achieving continuous improvement. It is also an important means to demonstrate responsible and sustainable production to stakeholders such as customers, investors, governments, communities, and employees," said Liang Wei. "Obtaining the Copper Mark certification also helps products gain recognition from premium market customers and achieve a price premium."
Globally, a total of 52 mines, 32 smelting/refining enterprises, and 11 metal manufacturers have currently obtained the Copper Mark. In the DRC, mines that have received the Copper Mark include CMOC's TFM, as well as Glencore's KCC and MUMI.
TFM is the world's fifth largest copper mine and the second largest cobalt mine. It possesses five copper-cobalt production lines and has an annual copper production capacity of 450,000 mt. Since the beginning of this year, TFM has continuously tapped into potential, improved operational and management efficiency, achieving enhancements in both copper production volume and quality. As a metal of the future, copper plays an irreplaceable role in the global transition to clean energy and the electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence. In recent years, due to insufficient capital expenditure and declining ore grades at traditional mines, global copper ore supply has been relatively tight. With the completion of four new production lines at TFM and another world-class project, KFM, in the DRC, CMOC has become one of the few large-scale miners globally to maintain rapid growth in copper production in recent years, and for the first time in 2024, it ranked among the world's top ten copper producers. In H1 2025, CMOC's copper production reached 353,600 mt, setting a new historical high for the same period and continuing to serve as a "stabilizer" for global copper production in the mining industry.
