Arthur Katalayi and A2k Advisory Launch First Mining Podcast in the Democratic Republic of Congo

KINSHASA, January 24^th 2022 – A2k Advisory Sarl (“A2k”), a boutique strategic advisory firm with a focus on mining, will launch an original podcast series – the first of its kind in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – hosted by its Senior Partner Arthur Katalayi.

The Right Advice podcast, a quarterly talk show, will premiere on January 28^th 2022 by being widely distributed to audiences across the open podcast ecosystem on Google, Apple, Anchor, Spotify platforms and on a2kadvisory.com. The podcast will feature world class captains of industries, entrepreneurs and chief executives over the course of the next 12 months.

Mr. Katalayi, a former senior executive advisory to the chairman of the board of directors at Congolese copper and cobalt state-owned mining company Gecamines, comes from a technology and finance background having consulted for the likes of Fedex Corp., Bloomberg L.P. and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in the United States. Further, he also served as a senior economic advisor to the president of the Federation des Entreprises du Congo; DRC’s chamber of commerce and its premier business lobby group. In 2017, Mr. Katalayi was awarded in New York the MIPAD Global Top 100 award – a selection of the world’s 100 most influential people of African descent under 40 years old.

The first guest of the inaugural podcast series is Yves Ilunga, Chief Executive of Glencore’s Mutanda Mining (“Mutanda”), the world’s biggest cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr. Ilunga served as Non Executive Director of Alufer Mining Limited in Guernsey, and has over 20 years of experience in the mining industry. He previously worked with MMG, Endeavour Mining on their Houndé Project, and was Chief Financial Officer of Dangote Cement and Sierra Rutile. Additionally, he was also with AngloGold Ashanti and De Beers Consolidated Mines in Ghana, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.

In 2021, $203 billion-a-year in revenues Glencore (LSE: GLEN) decided that it will restart production at the mothballed Mutanda copper-cobalt in early 2022, and that decision is one of many moves needed to ensure supply growth can match the trajectory of increasing worldwide stunning demand.

According to London-based commodity research firm Roskill, forecasts for cobalt demand are to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 7% in the period to 2030. To keep the market in balance, Roskill believes new supply equivalent to four ‘Mutandas’ will be required over the period to 2030. Mutanda Mining produced 103,200 tonnes of copper and 25,100 tonnes of cobalt hydroxide in 2019 compare, with 199,000 tonnes and 27,300 tonnes respectively in 2018. The largest cobalt mine in the world has five copper production lines and three cobalt hydroxide lines; ore is mined using conventional open pit load and haul method, prior to leaching to produce final product of copper cathode – cobalt is produced as a by-product in cobalt hydroxide form. To put in perspective the importance of cobalt, about 15 kgs of that metal are needed to build one electric vehicle (EV).

Cobalt futures are available for trading in the London Metal Exchange (LME). The standard contact has a size of 1 tonne. LME price of cobalt per tonne as of Monday January 24^th 2022 is USD$72.000 at 1:03 pm (GMT).

Conversations on The Right Advice podcast will revolve around the importance of natural resources, financial markets, new technologies, the future of the mining industry and how green energy is gradually electrifying the world economy under a rapid decarbonization scenario.

The $173 trillion global energy transition taking place, and the growth of electric vehicles going forward, will demand more of the minerals (especially cobalt and copper) of the Democratic Republic of Congo – of which the global demand will quadruple from 2020 out to 2050.