Union Minière du Haut Katanga
Encyclopedia
The Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) was a Belgian
mining company, once operating in Katanga
, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(formerly, Congo Free State
, from 1908, Belgian Congo
, from 1972, Zaire
). It was created on October 28, 1906, as a result of a merger of a company created by Léopold II
and Tanganyika Concessions Ltd (a British company created by Robert Williams, which started prospecting for minerals in 1899, and was granted mining concessions in 1900), in order to exploit the mineral wealth of Katanga. It was owned jointly by the Société Générale de Belgique
, Belgium's largest holding company (which controlled 70% of the Congolese economy) and Tanganyika Concessions Ltd. Some of the remains of the UMHK form part of the present day company Umicore
.
. Thereafter, mineral production, especially of copper, took off. For instance, in 1911, the Ruashi Mine
, owned by the UMHK, began operation, supplying 997 tonne
s of copper on its first year. By 1919, annual production had risen to 22,000 tonnes, produced by seven furnaces. In 1935, the Union was party to the World Copper Agreement . In the 1950s, Congo was the world’s fourth largest copper-producing country.
(the UMHK was responsible 75% of the production of which during the 1950s), tin
, uranium and zinc
in its mines, among the richest in the world. Henri Buttgenbach, a famous Belgian metallurgist and administrator of UMHK from 1911, described cornetite, fourmarierite, cuprosklodowskie and thoreaulite. The finding of radium
deposits in Katanga at the same time eventually led to a Belgian radium-extracting industry. Johannes Franciscus Vaes, who has studied minerals coming from the UMHK, is responsible for the discovery of billietite, masuyite
, renierite, richetite, schuilingite-(Nd), sengierite, tudtite and vandendriesscheite. Gaston Briart
, after whom Briartite
is named, was a UMHK consultant.
In 1922, the UMHK built its first refinery for uranium
ore, and by 1926 had a virtual monopoly of the world uranium market (holding most of the deposits known at the time), to be broken only by the German invasion of 1940. This uranium was mostly refined at Olen, Belgium. In 1939 , Frédéric Joliot-Curie
, head of the French
newly-established Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS), arranged for the UMHK to provide his organization 5 tonnes of uranium oxide, technical assistance with the construction of a reactor and a million francs, in exchange for having all discoveries made by the CNRS patented by a syndicate, with profits shared between the CNRS and the UMHK. This uranium oxide was transferred to England before German troops entered Paris.
The United States of America obtained uranium for the atomic bomb from the Union Minière. At a meeting on 18 September 1942 between Edgar Sengier
, head of UMHK, and United States
General Kenneth Nichols
of the Manhattan Project
, Nichols purchased the 1500 tonnes of uranium (mostly mined at Shinkolobwe mine, near the town of Likasi
) the project required. This was already in the United States, and additional ore was shipped from the Congo. The mine had a "tremendously rich lode of uranium pitchblende. Nothing like it has ever again been found"; the ore was 65% uranium and even the waste piles were 20%; "after the war the MED and the AEC considered ore containing three tenths of 1 percent as a good find". Some 1200 tonnes of uranium stored at the Olen refinery were captured by the Germans in 1940, and only recovered by US troops at the end of the war.
During its heyday, the UMHK operated schools, dispensaries, hospitals and sporting establishments, and had enjoyed virtually unlimited funds with the Banque de la Société Générale de Belgique. In 1959, Belgian profits from the Union Miniere were in excess of 3.5 billion Belgian franc
s, and export duties paid to the Congolese government constituted 50% of the government's revenue. There were times when the Belgian colony's tax on the UMHK accounted for up to 66% of its revenues. It is reported that in 1960, the UMHK had annual sales of $200 million USD, had produced 60 percent of the uranium in the West, 73 percent of the cobalt, and 10 percent of the copper, and had in the Congo 24 affiliates including hydroelectric plants, chemical factories and railways.
, Congo's first prime minister after Belgian colonial rule. Upon the province's secession, the Union transferred 1.25 billion Belgian francs (35 million USD) into Moïse Tshombe
's bank account, an advance on 1960 taxes which should in fact have been paid to Lumumba's government. On December 31, 1966, the Congolese government, under dictator Mobutu Sese Seko
, took over the possessions and activities of the UMHK, transforming it into Gécamines
(Société générale des Carrières et des Mines), a state-owned mining company. Mismanagement and failure to adopt modern standards of mining (rather than mining depletion), as well as outright theft by the dictator Mobutu, meant that mining production was greatly reduced, with production rate sinking as much as 70%. Those assets of UMHK not seized by Mobutu were absorbed by the Société Générale de Belgique, later becoming part of Union Minière (now Umicore
).
Göran Björkdahl (a Swedish aid worker) wrote in 2011 that he believed Dag Hammarskjöld
's 1961 death was a murder committed in part to benefit mining companies like Union Minière, after Hammarsköld had made the UN intervene in the Katanga crisis. Björkdahl based his assertion on interviews with witnesses of the plane crash near the border of the DRC with Zambia
, and on archival documents.
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
mining company, once operating in Katanga
Katanga Province
Katanga Province is one of the provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between 1971 and 1997, its official name was Shaba Province. Under the new constitution, the province was to be replaced by four smaller provinces by February 2009; this did not actually take place.Katanga's regional...
, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
(formerly, Congo Free State
Congo Free State
The Congo Free State was a large area in Central Africa which was privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians. Its origins lay in Leopold's attracting scientific, and humanitarian backing for a non-governmental organization, the Association internationale africaine...
, from 1908, Belgian Congo
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...
, from 1972, Zaire
Zaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...
). It was created on October 28, 1906, as a result of a merger of a company created by Léopold II
Leopold II of Belgium
Leopold II was the second king of the Belgians. Born in Brussels the second son of Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orléans, he succeeded his father to the throne on 17 December 1865 and remained king until his death.Leopold is chiefly remembered as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free...
and Tanganyika Concessions Ltd (a British company created by Robert Williams, which started prospecting for minerals in 1899, and was granted mining concessions in 1900), in order to exploit the mineral wealth of Katanga. It was owned jointly by the Société Générale de Belgique
Société Générale de Belgique
The Société Générale de Belgique was one of the largest companies that ever existed in Belgium. It was founded in 1822 by William I, and existed until 2003, when its then sole shareholder, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, merged it with Tractebel to form Suez-Tractebel.-History:As part of the terms of the...
, Belgium's largest holding company (which controlled 70% of the Congolese economy) and Tanganyika Concessions Ltd. Some of the remains of the UMHK form part of the present day company Umicore
Umicore
Umicore N.V. is a multinational materials technology company headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Formed in 1989 by the merger of four companies in the mining and smelting industries, Umicore has since reshaped itself into a more technology-focused business encompassing such areas as the refining...
.
Copper's travail
During its years of operation, the UMHK greatly contributed to the wealth of Belgium, and, to a lesser extent, Katanga—which developed more than the surrounding regions without similar mineral resources. The company could be considered harshly capitalistic, but its motto at the time, best expressing their opinion of development was "good health, good spirits, and high productivity." Possibly it was because of this approach, and in order to keep and placate the workforce, that the Union introduced an accident compensation scheme as early as 1928. Katanga's mineral wealth led to the construction of railways (including the Benguela railway) to connect it with the Angolan coast which took place in 1911, other rail lines connected Katanga to Northern RhodesiaNorthern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a territory in south central Africa, formed in 1911. It became independent in 1964 as Zambia.It was initially administered under charter by the British South Africa Company and formed by it in 1911 by amalgamating North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia...
. Thereafter, mineral production, especially of copper, took off. For instance, in 1911, the Ruashi Mine
Ruashi Mine
The Ruashi Mine is an open-pit copper and cobalt mine operated by Metorex that is located about from Lubumbashi in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo....
, owned by the UMHK, began operation, supplying 997 tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
s of copper on its first year. By 1919, annual production had risen to 22,000 tonnes, produced by seven furnaces. In 1935, the Union was party to the World Copper Agreement . In the 1950s, Congo was the world’s fourth largest copper-producing country.
Uranium and politics
In addition to the copper for which it is known, Katanga was also rich in other minerals. The company controlled the exports of cobaltCobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....
(the UMHK was responsible 75% of the production of which during the 1950s), tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
, uranium and zinc
Zinc
Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
in its mines, among the richest in the world. Henri Buttgenbach, a famous Belgian metallurgist and administrator of UMHK from 1911, described cornetite, fourmarierite, cuprosklodowskie and thoreaulite. The finding of radium
Radium
Radium is a chemical element with atomic number 88, represented by the symbol Ra. Radium is an almost pure-white alkaline earth metal, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, becoming black in color. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226,...
deposits in Katanga at the same time eventually led to a Belgian radium-extracting industry. Johannes Franciscus Vaes, who has studied minerals coming from the UMHK, is responsible for the discovery of billietite, masuyite
Masuyite
Masuyite is a uranium/lead oxide mineral with formula Pb[3O32]·3H2O.Masuyite was first described in 1947 for an occurrence in Katanga and named to honor Belgian geologist Gustave Masuy ....
, renierite, richetite, schuilingite-(Nd), sengierite, tudtite and vandendriesscheite. Gaston Briart
Gaston Briart
Gaston Briart was a Belgian geologist and mining engineer who worked and studied rock formations at Prince Léopold mine, Kipushi, Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo.The mineral Briartite, discovered in Kipushi in 1965, is named in his honour....
, after whom Briartite
Briartite
Briartite is an opaque iron-grey metallic sulfide mineral, Cu2GeS4 with traces of Ga and Sn, found as inclusions in other germanium-gallium-bearing sulfides....
is named, was a UMHK consultant.
In 1922, the UMHK built its first refinery for uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
ore, and by 1926 had a virtual monopoly of the world uranium market (holding most of the deposits known at the time), to be broken only by the German invasion of 1940. This uranium was mostly refined at Olen, Belgium. In 1939 , Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Frédéric Joliot-Curie
Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie , born Jean Frédéric Joliot, was a French physicist and Nobel laureate.-Early years:...
, head of the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
newly-established Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Centre national de la recherche scientifique
The National Center of Scientific Research is the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe....
(CNRS), arranged for the UMHK to provide his organization 5 tonnes of uranium oxide, technical assistance with the construction of a reactor and a million francs, in exchange for having all discoveries made by the CNRS patented by a syndicate, with profits shared between the CNRS and the UMHK. This uranium oxide was transferred to England before German troops entered Paris.
Edgar Sengier
Edgar Sengier was the director of the Belgian Union Minière du Haut Katanga during World War II. Sengier is credited with giving the American government access to much of the uranium necessary for the Manhattan Project...
, head of UMHK, and United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
General Kenneth Nichols
Kenneth Nichols
Kenneth David "Nick" Nichols was a United States Army officer and an engineer. He worked on the Manhattan Project which developed the Atomic Bomb during World War II as Deputy District Engineer and then District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District...
of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
, Nichols purchased the 1500 tonnes of uranium (mostly mined at Shinkolobwe mine, near the town of Likasi
Likasi
Likasi, formerly known as Jadotville or Jadotstad, is a city in Haut-Katanga Province, in the south-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.-Demographics:Likasi has a population of around 367,000...
) the project required. This was already in the United States, and additional ore was shipped from the Congo. The mine had a "tremendously rich lode of uranium pitchblende. Nothing like it has ever again been found"; the ore was 65% uranium and even the waste piles were 20%; "after the war the MED and the AEC considered ore containing three tenths of 1 percent as a good find". Some 1200 tonnes of uranium stored at the Olen refinery were captured by the Germans in 1940, and only recovered by US troops at the end of the war.
During its heyday, the UMHK operated schools, dispensaries, hospitals and sporting establishments, and had enjoyed virtually unlimited funds with the Banque de la Société Générale de Belgique. In 1959, Belgian profits from the Union Miniere were in excess of 3.5 billion Belgian franc
Belgian franc
The franc was the currency of Belgium until 2002 when the euro was introduced into circulation. It was subdivided into centimes , 100 centiem or Centime .-History:...
s, and export duties paid to the Congolese government constituted 50% of the government's revenue. There were times when the Belgian colony's tax on the UMHK accounted for up to 66% of its revenues. It is reported that in 1960, the UMHK had annual sales of $200 million USD, had produced 60 percent of the uranium in the West, 73 percent of the cobalt, and 10 percent of the copper, and had in the Congo 24 affiliates including hydroelectric plants, chemical factories and railways.
Lumumba and Mobutu
This eventually came to an end. Turbulence started in 1960, with the Congolese declaration of independence. In 1961, the UMHK supported the secession of the province of Katanga from the Congo and the murder of Patrice LumumbaPatrice Lumumba
Patrice Émery Lumumba was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis...
, Congo's first prime minister after Belgian colonial rule. Upon the province's secession, the Union transferred 1.25 billion Belgian francs (35 million USD) into Moïse Tshombe
Moise Tshombe
Moïse Kapenda Tshombe was a Congolese politician.- Biography :He was the son of a successful Congolese businessman and was born in Musumba, Congo. He received his education from an American missionary school and later trained as an accountant...
's bank account, an advance on 1960 taxes which should in fact have been paid to Lumumba's government. On December 31, 1966, the Congolese government, under dictator Mobutu Sese Seko
Mobutu Sese Seko
Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga , commonly known as Mobutu or Mobutu Sese Seko , born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, was the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1997...
, took over the possessions and activities of the UMHK, transforming it into Gécamines
Gécamines
Gécamines, or La Générale des Carrières et des Mines, is a state-owned mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo . Its principal products are copper , cobalt and zinc...
(Société générale des Carrières et des Mines), a state-owned mining company. Mismanagement and failure to adopt modern standards of mining (rather than mining depletion), as well as outright theft by the dictator Mobutu, meant that mining production was greatly reduced, with production rate sinking as much as 70%. Those assets of UMHK not seized by Mobutu were absorbed by the Société Générale de Belgique, later becoming part of Union Minière (now Umicore
Umicore
Umicore N.V. is a multinational materials technology company headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Formed in 1989 by the merger of four companies in the mining and smelting industries, Umicore has since reshaped itself into a more technology-focused business encompassing such areas as the refining...
).
Göran Björkdahl (a Swedish aid worker) wrote in 2011 that he believed Dag Hammarskjöld
Dag Hammarskjöld
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was a Swedish diplomat, economist, and author. An early Secretary-General of the United Nations, he served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. He is the only person to have been awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize. Hammarskjöld...
's 1961 death was a murder committed in part to benefit mining companies like Union Minière, after Hammarsköld had made the UN intervene in the Katanga crisis. Björkdahl based his assertion on interviews with witnesses of the plane crash near the border of the DRC with Zambia
Dag Hammarskjöld Crash Site Memorial
The Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Crash Site marks the place of the plane crash in which Dag Hammarskjöld, the second and then-incumbent United Nations Secretary General was killed on the 17th September, 1961, while on a mission to the Congo Republic...
, and on archival documents.
External links
- List of directors of UMHK - Scroll down to Union Minière du Haut Katanga (de facto rulers)
- Scramble for Katanga (downloadable book)
- Umicore