The US is stepping up efforts to boost ties with African nations rich in critical minerals to help secure supply, according to a government official. Workshops recently held in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, and Kinshasa in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo brought in US experts with the ultimate goal of setting up local battery manufacturing operations, Kimberly Harrington, deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Energy Resources, said at a conference in Cape Town on Thursday.
“Critical minerals are incredibly important for the technologies that are going to drive the global clean energy transition,” she said late Wednesday. “My conversations here with the private sector and with partners in a variety of governments have really advanced those discussions.”
Last month, the US government approved $150 million of funding for a graphite-mining project in Mozambique.
The US International Development Finance Corp. financing was granted to Twigg Exploration and Mining Lda, which has a project in northeastern Mozambique, to mine and process the material that’s used in electric-vehicle batteries and nuclear reactors. Twigg is a unit of Melbourne, Australia-based Syrah Resources Ltd., the biggest graphite producer outside China.
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