• DR Congo suspended cobalt exports in early 2025 before moving to a quota system aimed at regulating global supply.

• The strategy mirrors OPEC’s early tactics as Kinshasa seeks to turn its dominant resource position into lasting market influence.

In February 2025, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) suspended its cobalt exports in a bid to influence prices—and succeeded. A few months later, Kinshasa is preparing to replace the embargo with a quota system. According to an Ecofin Pro report by Louis-Nino Kansoun, editor-in-chief at Agence Ecofin and a specialist in critical minerals, the strategy echoes the early days of OPEC, with a dominant producer testing its ability to shape global prices.

The report highlights parallels between the Congolese approach and the oil cartel’s origins in the 1960s. Like OPEC at its inception, the DRC is deliberately creating scarcity to reverse a price slump and regain control over its resource rents. But the analysis also points to key differences.

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Cobalt is a byproduct of copper and nickel mines, limiting the DRC’s production flexibility. Most of the downstream refining capacity lies in China, and the DRC currently operates without a formal coalition—unlike OPEC’s founding members. The study outlines three potential outcomes: disciplined success, failure through substitution, or limited but tangible influence.

The new policy marks an attempt to break from the role of a passive supplier and turn geological advantage into strategic leverage. The shift to quotas reflects a political will to stabilize prices while channeling mining revenues toward domestic industrialization.

According to the analysis, the coming decade will be decisive. The cobalt market could swing back into deficit in the early 2030s, giving the DRC a five- to seven-year window to structure its regulatory power. Whether Kinshasa can cement its place as a market maker—or whether its “Cobalt OPEC” remains a one-off experiment—will determine the long-term impact of this bold move.