Congo's regulator hit every major mining book as the US-DRC Strategic Partnership stalled: no Geneva communiqué, a Lobito misattribution, a weak bond sale.
The State Department's 2026 assessment and the enforcement file now describe two different countries. The gap between them is the risk investors are not pricing.
A Congolese refinery with no mine now has a U.S. study grant. First metal still depends on feed, power, and a quota Kinshasa hands out at its discretion.
The partnership is producing transactions faster than institutions. A reserve commitment, a corridor power study, a delisting. The commercial steering body has met once. The reform clock runs to early December. The only public description of a one-stop shop is an unpromulgated, source-level sketch that names Sicomines.
The treaty said explore a coordinated stockpile on Congolese soil. This week EXIM hired Glencore to fill an American one. Mercuria wrote $500 million next to it. That is not delivery. That is a relocation.
Below the threshold is not outside the exposure. Four months after the Kabila designation, Matadi Gateway has three shareholding versions, a state representative nobody can trace, and 50 of 58 subcontracts ordered cancelled.
Subscribe for full access to weekly briefs, gated analysis, reference registers, and flagship dossiers.
