Building a data-driven view of the DRC mining sector requires navigating a set of official, institutional, and commercial sources that each have specific scope, update frequencies, and reliability characteristics. This article explains what each major source contains, how to access it, and what its limitations are.
CAMI — Cadastre Minier
What it covers: The national mining permit register. Every Permis de Recherche (PR) and Permis d'Exploitation (PE) in the DRC is recorded in the CAMI system, with permit holder name, coordinates, permit type, issue date, and expiry date.
How to access it: cadastreminier.cd. Free public access with registration. Search by holder, province, commodity, or permit number. The interface allows map-based and text-based queries.
Limitations: The database reflects CAMI's internal records but may not be updated in real time. Recent permit transfers, new applications, or renewals may not appear immediately. For definitive permit status confirmation, a notarised CAMI extract is the authoritative document.
Use cases: Confirming which entity holds a specific permit area; identifying permits held by a given company in a given province; understanding permit expiry schedules; identifying open ground adjacent to known projects.
CTCPM — Centre de Traitement des Contentieux Miniers
What it covers: The CTCPM is the DRC's mining disputes resolution body. It handles administrative disputes between permit holders, between permit holders and the state, and cases involving permit boundary conflicts or transfer refusals.
How to access it: CTCPM publishes decisions periodically. Decisions are not comprehensively indexed online but are referenced in legal practitioner databases and occasionally cited in company disclosures when they involve disputed assets.
Use cases: Understanding historical permit disputes; due diligence on contested permits; tracking regulatory decisions that affect specific concessions.
EITI DRC — CONAPITD
What it covers: Payment reconciliation between company declarations and government receipts for mining, oil, and gas revenues. Covers royalties, surface rents, corporate income tax, VAT exemptions, export duties, and dividends. Company-level data disaggregated by mine and by revenue stream.
How to access it: eiti.org/drc. Reports are available as PDFs and structured data files. The most recent published reconciliation covers 2021. The 2022 report was in preparation at the time of writing.
Limitations: Time lag of approximately 2–3 years between fiscal year and published reconciliation. The reconciliation covers formal-sector companies and state entities; ASM contributions and informal-sector flows are partially estimated rather than reconciled.
Use cases: Comparing company-declared payments against government-declared receipts; identifying discrepancies that may indicate transfer pricing or under-declaration; tracking provincial and ETD royalty transfer compliance; benchmarking company payments across the sector.
Banque Centrale du Congo
What it covers: Export statistics by commodity and province, monthly and annual. The BCC data series is the most granular official production and export data available for the DRC mining sector.
How to access it: bcc.cd. Monthly and annual reports are published as PDFs, with commodity-level and province-level breakdowns where available.
Limitations: Figures represent declared export values and may not fully capture informal exports. Reconciling BCC figures with company-reported production data occasionally reveals gaps attributable to stockpiling, timing differences, or unreported product.
Company reports
What they cover: Operator-level production, cost, capital expenditure, and environmental/social performance data. Listed operators — Ivanhoe Mines, Glencore, Barrick, CMOC — file quarterly operational updates, annual reports, and technical reports (NI 43-101 for Canadian-listed companies) that provide mine-level detail.
How to access them: Company investor relations pages; SEDAR+ (Canadian companies); EDGAR (US-listed); HKEX EPOINT (CMOC); LSE market announcement service (Glencore).
Limitations: Privately held operators (ERG, CNMC subsidiaries in DRC) provide limited disclosure. Company-level figures may use different reporting conventions from official government statistics.
UN Group of Experts
What it covers: Mineral flows in conflict-affected eastern DRC provinces. Annual and interim reports to the UN Security Council. Documents specific companies, traders, and supply-chain pathways. Essential for due diligence on 3T and gold from eastern provinces.
How to access it: un.org/securitycouncil → Expert Panel Reports → DRC. Free access.
IPIS Research
What it covers: Geo-referenced mapping of artisanal mining sites across eastern DRC. The IPIS database is the most comprehensive independent source for ASM site locations, mineral types, and risk indicators (armed group proximity, child labour documentation).
How to access it: ipisresearch.be. Web-based map interface and downloadable datasets.
