[4] Prehistoric mines in the Katanga belt have been found at Dikuluwe near Musonoi, Tenke-Fungurume, Kambove, Luishia, Ruashi and Etoile, and at the Naviundo and Luano archaeological sites.
Women and children collected malachite from the surface, while men used iron picks to excavate pits and shafts, using fire to crack the rocks when needed.
The Union Minière constantly struggled to prevent recruits fleeing from the mines, sometimes taking refuge in Angola.
The lowest death rate at the Panda, Lubumbashi, Kisanga and Musonoi work sites in 1928 was four men per month.
[4] In 2005, proceeds from an oil sale to Glencore, an Anglo–Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company, were seized as fraudulent gains as part of an investigation into corruption in the country (Allen-Mills 17 June 2008).
[9] In the course of the Congo events, Nikanor was merged into Katanga in late 2007 in a transaction valued at US$3.3 billion.
For example, TEAL, a subsidiary of African Rainbow Minerals, was asked by letter to submit their feasibility study for their Kalumines property to identify the real contribution of each of the parties "in order to achieve a fair attribution of shares".
The letter said the feasibility study should present a planning of "realisation of social actions with a visible impact".
[11] In August 2009, the DRC government revoked First Quantum Minerals' (FQM) license to operate the Kolwezi tailings project, alleging "unreasonable behaviour" in negotiations to change the contract.
[13] In May 2010 a Congolese court ruled that FQM's Lonshi and Frontier copper mines had been awarded illegally and that they should revert to state-owned Sodimico.
[15] The largest shareholders in most copper mines in the DRC are foreign corporations, with the Congolese state-owned Gécamines holding a minority stake in most projects.
CMOC Group Limited, formerly known as China Molybdenum, entered the DRC in 2016 with the purchase of the Tenke Fungurume Mine.
The Kababankola Mining Company (KMC) is a joint-venture between Gécamines (20%) and Tremalt (80%) with the objective of exploiting Copper and cobalt.
The ownership of most mines is structured as a joint venture split between a foreign company and the DRC state-controlled miners Gécamines and Sodimico.