Have a look at the Wikipedia pages for coltan and in particular the chart of sources and percentage of world production.
Up until 2013 DRC was only one of several economies producing tantalum. This is a decision grounded in price sensitivity, not scarcity, Australia is capable of significantly higher supply rates. The mines were closed as uneconomic against pricing.
It's a richer and more complicated story in Australia.
For the US readers, it starts (well, not really) with some guy called Herbert Hoover on his world tour sabbatical back in the day.
In 1989/99 Hoover was part of the aquisition of Sons of Gwalia v0.1 and it's revamp and v1.0 launch on the London Stock Exchange.
Years passsed, a number of Australian minesites with a variety of resources were acqired, worked, profited from, becoming Australia's third-largest gold producer and controlled more than half of the world's production of tantalum, before entering administration in 2004 following a financial collapse.
That collapse was due largely to falling gold reserves and poor risk hedging decisions, and put all the mines on the table, including the Greenbushes, WA deposits.
Roll forward a wee bit in time ..
Greenbushes is a lot of lithium, a lot of tantalum, and a lot of argy bargy between a majority Chinese owner and minority American partner with some financing issues on the majority side due to their purchase of 20% of Chilean lithium producer SQM coupled with other issues affecting capital development.
There's a bit of excitement re: the Kapanga deposit
a giant pegmatite dike of Archean age with substantial Li-Sn-Ta mineralization, including half the world’s tantalum resource.
Hoover had a pash with a barmaid in Kalgoorlie and bought her a huge mirror. I think she flogged it to the pub, it's in the corridor of the palace hotel with a note. Nice mirror. Tasteful wooden nude caryatids on the side.
defrost•6mo ago
I'm leaving it there - pure fat fingered typo!
I haven't been in Kal for a decade now, the hotels were once replete with fleshy nude barmaids on all sides of the mirrors behind the bars.
Tasteful was in the eye of the beholder.
ggm•6mo ago
The skimpies aren't as widespread. I'm not going to risk that being misunderstood: less pubs have them. Was there last month passing through to Hayden and wave rock. The museum says during peak rush days 150,000 people were living in tents. If that was before the Coolgardie waterpipe was laid it would have been a ripe town.
hulitu•6mo ago
> BBC gains rare access to the Congolese mine powering mobile phones
ggm•6mo ago
Up until 2013 DRC was only one of several economies producing tantalum. This is a decision grounded in price sensitivity, not scarcity, Australia is capable of significantly higher supply rates. The mines were closed as uneconomic against pricing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan
defrost•6mo ago
For the US readers, it starts (well, not really) with some guy called Herbert Hoover on his world tour sabbatical back in the day.
In 1989/99 Hoover was part of the aquisition of Sons of Gwalia v0.1 and it's revamp and v1.0 launch on the London Stock Exchange.
Years passsed, a number of Australian minesites with a variety of resources were acqired, worked, profited from, becoming Australia's third-largest gold producer and controlled more than half of the world's production of tantalum, before entering administration in 2004 following a financial collapse.
That collapse was due largely to falling gold reserves and poor risk hedging decisions, and put all the mines on the table, including the Greenbushes, WA deposits.
Roll forward a wee bit in time ..
Greenbushes is a lot of lithium, a lot of tantalum, and a lot of argy bargy between a majority Chinese owner and minority American partner with some financing issues on the majority side due to their purchase of 20% of Chilean lithium producer SQM coupled with other issues affecting capital development.
There's a bit of excitement re: the Kapanga deposit
https://portergeo.com.au/database/mineinfo.asp?mineid=mn508ggm•6mo ago
Hoover had a pash with a barmaid in Kalgoorlie and bought her a huge mirror. I think she flogged it to the pub, it's in the corridor of the palace hotel with a note. Nice mirror. Tasteful wooden nude caryatids on the side.
defrost•6mo ago
I haven't been in Kal for a decade now, the hotels were once replete with fleshy nude barmaids on all sides of the mirrors behind the bars.
Tasteful was in the eye of the beholder.
ggm•6mo ago