🇲🇱Mali: JNIM at Intahaka

🌍 A few days after the Malian army declared its intention to reassert state authority at the Intahaka gold mine, the site is being contested by the jihadist group Jama'at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al- Muslimin (JNIM).

🔴On October 16 the Malian government issued a warning prescribing artisanal miners to leave Intahaka by October 22.

‼️On the day of this announcement Malian separatist Azavad Liberation Front published a communiqué rejecting the decision.

⁉️ The Malian Armed Forces reportedly arrived at the site on October 23, and yesterday were attacked by the jihadist rebels.

It remains unclear whether the mine has fallen entirely into the hands of anti-government forces or is still controlled by the Malian army and allied groups.

Why drive away the artisanal miners?

All this raises the question of why Bamako moved to enforce control over the mine at this particular moment.

🔸 Initially it seemed that the decision indicated the upcoming start of operations of SOREM Mali S.A. - a state-owned gold miner which acquired exploration license at Intahaka in August, 2024.

But the assertiveness of antigovernment forces and the mine’s distant location make any large-scale operations highly unlikely.

🔸 Another possibility is that the authorities sought to cut off jihadist financing from the mine - implying the government may not intend to launch its own operations there at all for now.

If Bamako maintains control, we’ll probably see the logic behind this decision become clearer at last.

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🇦🇴🇧🇼 Angola In Anglo - Botswana Outbidded?

🌍 On October 24 Angola's state-run gem producer Endiama EP submitted an offer to buy Anglo American Plc’s majority stake (85%) in De Beers.

However, there is a catch - a similar deal was proposed to Anglo American by Botswana last month. Both countries are major African diamond producers, with Botswana already possessing a 15% stake in De Beers.

🔸 For Angola, participation in De Beers would mean access to the company's cutting-edge mining technologies and marketing system.

🔸 For Botswana, controlling shares are seen as a matter of national security and economic stability. Speaking about the country's bid, the President of Botswana said in late September:

“We want effective control of the industry, we want our voice to be heard…”

Though such a situation can hardly engender a real geopolitical standoff, as Angola clearly indicates its readiness to negotiate and accept a smaller share. Botswana, on the other hand, will probably face difficulties in mustering sufficient funds for its offer in any case.

🤝 The most probable outcome thus is that Anglo American's stake will be divided more or less equally between the two bidders if no one else steps in.

After all, even if Botswana's ambitions are not fully realized, buying a struggling company with public money seems a less promising solution than more intensive diversification policies, for example.

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🇿🇼 Zimbabwe-China Dialogue

🌐 Another capture of a working dispute between a local citizen and a Chinese national is being currently disseminated on social media, showing a manager of Huayuo Cobalt confronting one of the employees.

Behind the Kung-Fu techniques performed in the video, one can easily overlook the fact that the company - Huayuo Cobalt - is China's leading cobalt supplier, Zimbabwe's major lithium producer, as well as the first company to move into domestic lithium sulphate production in Zimbabwe..

💬 And nevertheless the international master-minds of mining still fall short of finding the common ground with on-site workers.

The anti-Chinese sentiment is growing stronger in Zimbabwe these days, spurred by actual working malpractices at Chinese enterprises, general public frustration and the ruling party's attempts to manipulate public opinion.

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💡 Resource Nationalism Index [ DRC ]

In the third chapter of our "Resource Nationalism Index" series, we take a closer look at the Democratic Republic of Congo, a major copper and gold producer, who has gained fame this year by imposing a 6-month long export ban on cobalt threatening entire global supply.

What else makes DRC different from the two countries we have already covered (Mali and Botswana) is the availability of complex system of domestic processing promotion and strict local content requirements.

So, what does Resource Nationalism look like in the DRC?

🔸 "Process It First" – 7/10 – Intermediate products of copper and cobalt processing are prohivited from export, but due to the physical absence of facilities the rule is often suspended.

🔸 "Share With the State” – 2/10 – No requirement to transfer or sell a share of output to the state on a priority basis, however, the state-run Entreprise Générale du Cobalt wields a monopoly on buying artisanal cobalt.

🔸 “We’re in Too!” – 8/10 – The state has the right for a 10% stake free of charge in the capital of mining companies, which increases by 5% each time a company renews its mining license + another 10% share is reserved for local investors.

🔸 “The Money's Yours, the People Are Ours" – 9/10 – The law requires at least 20% of staff (for management) to be Congolese nationals and ALL subcontractors to be local firms.

🔸 “Just Pay Up" – 7/10 – Taxes reach 3.5% for copper and gold 10% for cobalt + extra levies on excessive revenues from commodity sales.

🔸 "You Come – You Build" – 2/10 – Companies are obliged to contribute some 0.3% of their revenues to local community development, though even this is often violated.

🔸 “We’ll Do It Ourselves” – 8/10 – The state has established a system of tax breaks for invetments in local processing and makes investments itself through the state-owned companies Gécamines, Entreprise Générale du Cobalt and Fonds de Promotion de l’Industrie.

🔸 “Come Here, You Bastard!” – 2/10 – The government cannot exercise its authority over mineral deposits in the eastern DRC controlled by rebels, and falls short of eradicating illegal artisanal mining in other parts of the country. The government officials are allegedly involved in illicit mining and exporting.

Final score is 5.6 out of 10 — the weak points include the absence of requirements to transfer a part of output to the state, poor enforcement of local community development laws and inability to extend state control to all major deposits.

#DRC #ResourceNationalism

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🇬🇭 Ghana Ends Gold Mining


🌍 ... at 278 small-scale mining sites in a sweeping license revocation, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources announced on October 23, citing regulatory breaches and the expiration of licenses.

🔸 The blanket revocation is not ordinary for the country and may serve as a dogwhistle for those who urge the Ghanaian government to take more decisive steps in fighting illegal gold mining - known locally as galamsey.

🔸 Last time something similar could be witnessed was in March, when the government revoked ALL licenses issued since December 2024. The oversight authorities have clearly embarked on the path of sorting the mess in licesning, though its impact on the anti-galamsey fight remains vague.

Certainly, illegal miners are not very upset. Some don't care about formalities at all, while those who at least try to stay within the legal realm prefer working under soneone else's license for a humble fee.

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🏭What's Known of DRC-China "Industial City"

On October 23, Kinshasa announced a new $12 billion deal signed with the Sino–Congo Special Zone consortium to build a China–Congo Industrial City east of the capital.

The planned investments are expected to create 8 new industrial parks hosting around 1,200 factories, which could eventually generate at least 50,000 new jobs.

What’s Kinshasa’s Strategic Vision?
🔸 In autumn 2023, the Congolese government embarked on an ambitious expansion of Kinshasa through new investments and established the Strategic Oversight Committee for the Kinshasa City Expansion Project.

🔸 The idea builds on two special economic zones (SEZs) that have existed near Kinshasa since 2012.

🔸 The current plan is to merge these zones into a larger special economic area, with the government coordinating and promoting the creation of new industrial and agricultural enterprises.

Who Are the Chinese Counterparts?
🔸 Little is known about the Sino–Congo Special Zone сonsortium, except that it is reportedly led by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC).

What’s the Essence of the Recent Deal?
🔸 Few details have been disclosed. It remains unclear whether the signed document is merely a framework agreement or whether it already outlines specific activities CSCEC will undertake in the zone.

Will There Be Mineral Processing Facilities?
🔸 The DRC is rich in copper, cobalt, and gold, so one might expect new beneficiation plants related to these metals. However, no such projects have been announced yet.

💸What matters most is how the DRC plans to finance these ambitions. Since no third-party investors have been mentioned, it is likely that the $12 billion will be borrowed from China—raising concerns about another potential debt trap in Africa.

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🌐 Weekly News Digest on West & Central Africa’s Mineral Industries [ October 20–26 ]

The week of October 20–26 was rich in investment announcements and state–rebel rivalry over mineral deposits.

💡Here are the key highlights:

🇦🇴 Angola
- Angola to Begin Copper Production
- Endiama Bids for Majority Stake in De Beers

🇨🇩 DR Congo
- M23/AFC Rebels Reportedly Seize 500 kg of Gold at the Twangiza Mine
- China’s CMOC is Putting Another $1 Billion Into DRC's Copper

🇬🇭 Ghana
- Illegal Gold Mining Threatens EU Crop Exports
- Around 280 Small-Scale Mining Licences Were Revoked

🇲🇱 Mali
- State Reasserts — and Reportedly Immediately Loses — Control Over Intahaka Gold Mine

🇳🇪 Niger
- Government Pressures Oil CNPC to Meet Local Employment Quotas

🇳🇬 Nigeria
- Nigeria to Double Output of Africa’s Largest Oil Refinery
- Government to Establish New Mining Oversight Task Force

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🇳🇦 Namibian President Says Goodbye to Minister of Mines

On Sunday, Namibian President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah dismissed the Minister of Mines, Energy and Industry and assumed the portfolio herself, without offering any public explanation.

⏩ The former minister has NOT been tainted by any major corruption scandals or conflicts with other branches of government. ⏪

The most plausible explanation for this reshuffle may lie in the current president’s love for direct control over strategic sectors of the national economy:

🔸 In March 2025, Her Excellency had already moved Namibia’s Petroleum Directorate from the Ministry of Mines and Energy to the direct supervision of the Office of the President, saying that:

The new and emerging industries of oil and gas need to be managed in a manner that maximizes benefits for all Namibians. Therefore, the management of these industries will fall under the Office of the President.

🔸 Earlier today, during a brief meeting with the Ministry’s staff, the president did not outline any new policy directions. Instead, she asked the personnel to prepare presentations on the Ministry’s work over the past 6 months.

On social media, most citizens welcomed the move, citing expectations of greater policy cohesion and reduced corruption risks.

While this may indeed help streamline investment policy and attract new investors - particularly in the booming oil sector - in the long run, if a leader has to personally take charge to ensure coordination, it reflects poor governance, rather than a devotion to the nation’s future.

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⚙️ Afreximbank Wipes Out Colonialism

On October 25, Afreximbank inaugurated its new president at a ceremony in Cairo. In his inaugural address, the new head of the Pan-African financial institution George Elombi announced a strategic shift toward local value addition and mineral processing.

⏩ So far, the only large-scale domestic processing project financed by Afreximbank has been Nigeria’s Dangote oil refinery, where the bank acted as the main lender. ⏪

The new president, however, appears genuinely committed to placing mineral processing at the forefront of Afreximbank’s agenda:

First, we will promote and accelerate value addition and strategic minerals processing. We will work to stop the export of raw potential... We will establish a Strategic Minerals Development Programme to finance entire value chains.

The significance of this shift is difficult to overstate:

🔸 Most African governments that restrict raw material exports suffer from the absence of local processing facilities

🔸In the rare cases where such facilities exist, they are often foreign-owned due to a shortage of domestic capital.

Given that Afreximbank allocates around $20 billion annually, this policy realignment has a potential to actually help Africa reduce its dependence on raw resource exports - at a time when commodity prices are at record highs and geopolitical competition for critical minerals is only gaining momentum.

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🇬🇧 UK Recalls White Man's Burden

🌍 On Thursday, the Ministry of Mines of the DRC proudly announced it had secured $660 million in guarantees from UK Export Finance (UKEF) — a branch of the British government that supports exporters through insurance, loans, and guarantees.

⏩ Apparently, Albion is joining other European nations waking up from economic coma and seeking to counterbalance China’s investment expansion in Africa. ⏪

🔸 UKEF does not invest itself. Instead, it facilitates international trade by guaranteeing payments for deals that involve British exporters. In other words, if a British drilling-equipment manufacturer finds a buyer in the DRC, it can approach UKEF to ensure it gets paid even in case of force majeure.

🔸 However, since no major British companies currently operate in the Congolese mining sector — and only a few operate in the DRC at all — this arrangement will apparently serve as a foundation for future British ventures in Congolese minerals.

🔸 The Ministry of Mines also announced an upcoming visit of British investors in January 2026. A similar pilgrimage already took place in April 2024, when representatives of 26 major British firms came to Kinshasa - though very little was achieved.

Perhaps this time, the tea lovers will be more energetic, urged by the big and beautiful red-and-yellow flag waving proudly in the Congolese skies.

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🇳🇬 Nigeria: To Build Industry and Lose It

One day we’ll have a separate discussion about how Nigeria built - and then lost - its industrial capacity in the 1980-2000s. But today’s topic is narrower: how neglect and mismanagement cost Nigeria ten years of disruption at its only aluminium smelter.

🌍 On October 21, Nigeria’s Ministry of Power announced plans to connect the country’s only aluminium plant - the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) - to the national electricity grid.

⏩ The plant is owned by the Russian aluminium giant RUSAL and has not operated since 2014, due to the government’s inability to ensure a stable gas supply to the plant’s power station — coupled with poor political management. ⏪

🔸 The factory was originally a joint Nigeria–Germany–US venture, launched in 1997, but closed its doors just two years later due to a lack of electricity.

🔸 Between 2006 and 2008, the plant underwent privatization and was sold to RUSAL - no sooner had the company’s operations stabilized than Nigerian authorities made a U-turn, revoking the privatization in favor of the American firm BFI Group.

🔸 The smelter then plunged into endless bureaucratic disputes, which, combined with the government’s persistent failure to provide sufficient gas, ultimately buried the project.

And now, ministerial officials visit the barely alive smelter, promising something that should have been guaranteed at the very planning stage — electricity, without which NO aluminium plant can ever exist.

When we speak about resource extraction and local processing, we should not forget that sometimes the much-needed factories and refineries have already been built by out forebearers and only need a handful of competent management to kick off.

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🇱🇷 Liberia: A US Puppet Once Again?

🌍 Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai has dismissed Minister of Mines Wilmot Paye, citing “governance efficiency” as the reason.

⏩ However, the dismissal appears to have more to do with Liberia’s renewed rapprochement with the United States than with efficiency. ⏪

🔸 Wilmot Paye gained fame for his uncompromising political style - and more recently, for his objections to a deal with the US-based company Ivanhoe Atlantic, which seeks to use Liberia’s rail network to transport ore from Guinea to Atlantic ports.

🔸 The deal, signed in early July, concerns the Yekepa-Buchanan railway (see the map), to which Ivanhoe Atlantic would gain access through ArcelorMittal, the line’s current private operator. Paye has long opposed private control of the railway, calling on the government to take full responsibility for operating it itself.

🔸 Although the dismissal coincides exactly with the parliamentary consideration of this Ivanhoe deal, which began a few days ago, the more plausible trigger of the Paye's removal seems linked to the October 16 meeting between Liberia’s Foreign Minister Nyanti and US' Marco Rubio, devoted to Washington’s interest in Liberia’s critical minerals sector.

Clearly, Boakai is restructuring his administration to make it more welcoming to US investors. The question remains, however: with the pro-transparency minister now gone - will the promised investors actually come?

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🇬🇭 Finally a Good Idea

💡On October 28 the Ghanaian Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources announced plans to establish regional facilities for granting mining permits, as the country is drowning in mercury used in widespread illegal mining - galamsey.

⏩ This initiative is one of the only sensible policies produced by the current administration in its David and Goliath fight with illegal mining.⏪

🔸 Previously, the government’s Gold Board announced a blockchain system to track gold (do they even know that the gold is smelted during the production process?) and revoked roughly 300 small‑scale licences.

🔸 However, the illegal miners - many of them foreign, especially Chinese - do not actually care about these efforts until working illegally becomes much more costly than being “clean.”

To shift this balance of costs, the country needs to facilitate first the expansion of the legal mining sector — unless, of cource, it has sufficient police power to wipe out irregularities completely, which Ghana does not.

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🇦🇴 Luanda's Greed for Oil Takes It to (S)hell

🛢 Angola’s upstream regulator, ANPG, says it will sign an exclusive agreement with Shell on November 3 to explore and potentially develop several offshore and ultra-deepwater oil prospects.

⏩ That is, Angola wants oil here and now, without running lengthy license rounds. ⏪

🔸 In late 2023, the country felt constrained by OPEC’s 1.1 million barrels per day quota and said farewell to the organization in January 2024. Ironically, output then dropped even further below the OPEC-suppresses-us days.

🔸 While the reason of Angola's embarassing position lied in constant underinvestment, especially in costly, high-risk exploration, now Luanda seems ready to bring investors back by hook or crook, planning to bounce back to 1.1M barrels per day output by 2027.

However, what if the prices plunge by then? 🤨

🔸 The problem is not that Shell gets exploration permits without contest, but the fact that the oil-dependent economy seems unwilling to give up its dependence. Angola, whose exports rely on oil and gas for nearly 95%, sells almost all of its oil crude, having only built its first oil refinery in 50 years with the capacityof neglectable 30,000 barrels per day in September 2025.

For a country facing such oil dependence, fast-tracking proper procedures may feel natural - but Luanda clearly needs diversification more than another dash for oil ambitions.

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🇬🇭 Ghana: Let’s Audit Reuters

🌍 According to Reuters, the Ghanaian government plans a comprehensive audit of major large-scale gold miners from November 1 through June 2026 to scrutinize production volumes, mineral flows, and tax payments.

⏩ Given the exclusivity of Reuters’ sources, this could be either a scam or a genuinely positive sign for Ghana. ⏪

🔸 The report is based on a letter seen by Reuters, which was allegedly sent by the governmental Minerals Commission to major mining companies - AngloGold Ashanti, Asante Gold, Gold Fields, Newmont, Perseus, Xtra-Gold, and Zijin.

🔸 Given that Reuters often becomes a platform for anonymous political and economic signalling, this could be a fabrication by someone seeking to limit competition in Ghana’s gold sector - or a government leak.

If this is truly what Accra intends to do, it could be another step in curbing the country’s disastrous gold-mining problem.

🔸 Even though scrutiny of large-scale miners won’t directly affect illegal mining, some illicit gold that isn’t smuggled across the borders may be laundered through large-scale producers. Typically, illegal miners dig near large-scale operations and secretly sell ore to a processing plant, which then boosts reported output.

Amid many frankly awkward ideas, the Ghanaian government has recently proposed several promising measures, including decentralized licensing and now stronger oversight of major producers.

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🇳🇬 Nigeria: When Oligarchy Works for People

On Thursday, Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu slapped an extra 15% tariff on imported fuel, which was clearly another boost for Aliko Dangote, the tycoon behind Nigeria’s biggest oil refinery. Decades of preferential treatment built his empire. But could this long-running policy favoritism have brought any good to ordinary Nigerians?

Let's figure out who is Aliko Dangote and how his actions have shaped Nigeria.

⏩ Paradoxically, Dangote's political ties to Nigerian elites illustrate a rare example of how an oligarchy can serve a nation.⏪

🔸 Dangote owes much of his success to those ties. His first big win came in cement, which he expanded under the patronage of then-president Olusegun Obasanjo, whose 2003 campaign he heavily financed.

🔸 The mogul maintained good relations with all successive Nigerian administrations benefiting from import tariffs, tax breaks, public contracts, and a $2.7B foreign cash loan from the Central Bank of Nigeria to launch the now-famous Dangote oil refinery in 2023.

🔸 Paradoxically, that favoritism has served Nigeria in many ways - from a cement importer, the country became Africa’s largest producer. If the model works a second time, the oil-rich nation could end fuel imports and potentially acquire a world’s largest refinery bypassing the Jamnagar complex in India (1.24 million bpd)

A rare case when a conflict of interests resulted in national successes, this would never work out with investors from abroad, which would bribe and create nothing for people in return.

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