🇹🇿 Tanzania Elected Not to Trade

🌐 Bloomberg reports that Africa’s copper flows to China have been knocked offline amid Tanzania’s post-election unrest. Traders say new shipments from the African Copperbelt have become impossible after the Port of Dar es Salaam was temporarily closed.

⏩ Dar es Salaam is the key port for the TAZARA railway, the subject of a $1.4 billion deal signed on September 29 by China, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. ⏪

🔸 Dar es Salaam is a key artery for Zambian and DRC copper, with roughly 2/3 of Africa’s copper to China funneling through the city.

🔸 The shutdown follows a citywide curfew in Dar es Salaam and wider unrest around the October 29 vote. Initially expected to end by October 31, the closure was extended on Friday indefinitely.

🔸 It usually takes up to 25 days to move minerals from the Copperbelt to South African ports. With the railway system overloaded, it will take even longer to reroute them. Meanwhile, all the shipments already in port are now completely immovable.

🔸 The PRC has not made any public statements about the October 29 vote.

Devils Below

🌐 Weekly News Digest on West & Central Africa’s Mineral Industries [ October 27 – November 3 ]

The week was rich in ministerial rearrangements and efforts to rein in major mining companies.

💡Here are the key highlights:

🏦 Afreximbank
- Afreximbank's New Chair Announced Support For Domestic Mineral Processing

🇦🇴 Angola
- Angola Plans to Give Shell Exclusive Rights

🇨🇩 DR Congo
- The DRC Arranged For $660M of Guarantees From UK Export Finance

🇬🇭 Ghana
- Ghana to Decentralize Gold Licensing
- Ghana to Launch Comprehensive Review of Major Miners

🇱🇷 Liberia
- Liberia's President Replaced Mines Minister to Attract American Investments

🇲🇱 Mali
- World Bank's Arbitration Court Refused to Fast-Track Barrick vs Mali

🇳🇦 Namibia
- Namibian President Dismissed the Minister of Mines and Assumed the Post Herself

🇳🇪 Niger
- Niger Forced China's Oil Giant to Hire More Locals

🇳🇬 Nigeria
- Nigeria Tries Again to Revitalize Its Aliminium Smelter
- Nigeria Imposed Additinal 15% Tax on Fuel Imports

🇹🇿 Tanzania
- Post-election Unrest Disrupted Shipments Through Dar es Salaam Port

#NewsDigest

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⚔️ Resource Nationalism Is Getting Litigious

🌐 Investor–state fights over oil, gas, and minerals have hit a 10-year high. No fewer than 32 resource cases have already been filed at the World Bank’s arbitration court in 2025 - more than in all of last year. Most involve oil and gas, with Latin America leading the tally. Africa accounts for 10 cases, including Niger, Tanzania, the DRC, Mali, Morocco, and Senegal.

⏩ For all the talk about lithium and cobalt, the biggest share of disputes still comes from plain old oil and gas — 17 of 32. Energy-transition headlines haven’t reshaped the legal battlefield as much as one might expect. ⏪

🔸 Governments are under growing pressure to show value at home. Budgets are tight, elections loom in many places, and anti-colonial (let’s say “resource-nationalist”) rhetoric is widely deployed against incumbents.

🔸 The critical-minerals race adds a new layer: every major license revocation is now quickly labeled a geopolitical pivot and an unfair move demanding counteraction rather than co-optation. The U.S.–China contest over critical minerals is the backdrop.

🔸 But commodity prices matter most. With many minerals - including gold and copper - trading near highs, governments seek extra revenue, imposing new tax and local-content rules that weren’t anticipated at the planning stage.

The geographic distribution of cases shows that the drive to rein in resource companies extends far beyond Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger— and far beyond Africa itself.

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⚙️ Instruments of Geopolitical Competition

The competition over resources and markets does not always take the form of military engagements or commercial contracts. Sometimes it manifests as a race to set global requirements and standards of “responsible” behavior that can later be used against particular countries.

🌐 Mining 2030, a global mining-investor initiative backed by institutions overseeing about $18 trillion, has released a 10-year blueprint to make mining “responsible.” On paper, the plan calls for transparency, environmental accountability, and an end to illicit mining and trade.

⏩ However, the initiative is dominated by Western, and its publication neatly coincides with the October 31–November 1 G7 meeting in Canada on environmental protection and minerals — a signal that a new large framework is being built to contain China’s clout in mineral supply chains. ⏪

Mining 2030’s vision for a responsible mining sector — key points:

🔸 Credible, independent performance standards

🔸 Responsible sourcing across value chains

🔸 Regulatory and institutional frameworks that promote effective sector governance

🔸 Equitable and sustainable benefits from mining

🔸 Reduction of conflicts linked to mineral extraction

To achieve these goals, investors propose an International Minerals Agency, akin to the International Energy Agency created after the 1973 oil crisis to coordinate Western responses to supply risks.

🔸 This isn’t just ESG branding. The blueprint lands right after G7 ministers in Canada pushed “standards-based” critical-minerals markets and a strategy to diversify away from China, building on the June G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan (which also calls for transparency, diversification, security, and sustainable mining). The proposed agency and new buyer rules allow to hard-wire these standards into financing and procurement, steering offtake and capital toward non-Chinese routes.

🔸 If the agency idea sticks, miners that align with these standards may find cheaper capital and faster permits from G7 partners, while projects tied to Chinese processing — often labeled environmentally harmful — could face higher hurdles. The proposal also presses auto and big-tech buyers to prove “responsible” sourcing.

🔸 The West has long used standards and responsibility as instruments to contain adversaries — primarily through economic means — from oil and gas in the 1970s to telecoms more recently, and now to critical minerals.

Yet, as we’ve seen many times, the attractivenes of the Chinese model is exactly that it does not emphasize any “responsibility” and "requirements" at all. The risk is that worthy initiatives for responsible conduct get hijacked by political considerations and fail to improve ordinary people’s lives.

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🇨🇳 Iron Grasp of China

Guinea’s Simandou mega-mine — the world’s largest untapped high-grade iron-ore deposit — has begun moving ore and is preparing first shipments in November–December, marking the real start of a project long billed as a market-shifter. The $20–23 billion complex includes two mines and a new 650 km railway to a deep-water port — infrastructure created from scratch specifically for this project.

⏩ If successful, the project will give the PRC significant leverage over such a basic material as iron ore (and, by extension, steel) — in addition its near-monopoly in processing of critical minerals. ⏪

🔸 China is on both sides of this mountain. The project is split into two blocks (Northern and Southern): one led by Chinese partners such as Baowu and Weiqiao, and the other by UK-Australian Rio Tinto together with Chinalco (Aluminum Corporation of China). With Rio Tinto the only major non-Chinese lead investor, Chinalco is also the largest single shareholder in Rio Tinto. Guinea’s participation is limited to 15% on the public side.

🔸 With access to high-grade ore (65% Fe) from Simandou, Chinese companies could gain more leverage over market prices — potentially allowing for dumping prices — similar to dynamics seen when Chinese companies doubled cobalt production in the DRC in 2024, bringing other miners with higher costs of production on the verge of austerity.

🔸The project is more than a mine: it has redrawn Guinea’s infrastructure map. A 600–650 km, multi-user railway cuts across the country to a new deep-water port at Morebaya, which is also slated to be accessible for public use.

For Guinea, Simandou’s launch is the start of whole new era.

🔸 The government hopes iron ore will do for Guinea what fossil fuels did for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Reports indicate it has already hired Western advisers on how best to manage future iron-ore revenues, and it is planning to secure its first international sovereign credit rating.

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🇨🇲 Cameroonians Set on Fire Foreign Investments

🌐 Local reports and videos from Tignere mining site in Cameroon show a Chinese-operated gold site set on fire after it ignored the nationwide “stay at home” call. Footage shared on X and Facebook shows flames and crowds of Cameronian citizens (including local youth).

⏩ Young people have figured out that the Cameroonian elites, including the 92-year old and 50-years-in-power President Biya, hardly care about public anger. If the cash spigot from natural resources is open, the regime will keep calm. ⏪

🔸 After the Constitutional Council declared Paul Biya once again the winner of the presidential race on October 27, opposition led by Issa Tchiroma called three days of “ghost town” stay-home action from November 3 to 5 and many cities largely stopped. This is a non-violent tactic chosen after the first days of protest led to 48 people having been killed by police forces.

🔸 Traders and businesses understand that closures could be punished - for large-scale companies that means losing permits, costly facilities and future earnings in Cameroon. The Biya regime thus manages to protect its resource rents against popular discontent.

🔸 The arson shows that some Cameroonians are ready to take more decisive action to pull the plug on the regime. However, so far, this is a single action, and it only concerned gold mining, while in Cameroon oil matters more. In 2023 the country exported about $2.43 billion in crude oil and $1.12 billion in petroleum gas, against $951 million in gold.

Resource-rich dictatorships often dream of fencing off the wells and pits, selling the output, and forgetting the people. That is why citizens must keep reminding rulers they exist. Best do it peacefully, though there may be no other option but breaking the rules.

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💡 Resource Nationalism Index [ NIGER ]

In the light of the recent Niger-CNPC faceoff over local personnel employment, we decided to undertake a comprehensive overview of what Nigerien resource extraction policy framework look like through the prism of our "Resource Nationalism Index" series.

Today Niger mostly exports gold, crude oil and uranium (in the form of yellowcake).

So, how has the Nigerien government been handling the natural wealth of the nation?

🔸 "Process It First" – 6/10 – Miners have an obligation to carry out local processing within reasonable limits in accordance with the capabilities of the national economy, while the exact level of processing is specified in agreements and conventions.

🔸 "Share With the State” – 8/10 – The state reserves the right to purchase a portion of the products in proportion to its share in the mining project, and supplies of strategic minerals must first meet local demand.

🔸 “We’re in Too!” – 9/10 – The state receives 10% of the shares in new enterprises for free, and the state has the right to buy another 30%. Another 30% share is set for local investors at some stages of production, but in general it is fixed in conventions.

🔸 “The Money's Yours, the People Are Ours" – 9/10 – All unqualified positions are reserved for citizens of Niger - for the rest, companies are required to seek to replace all positions with local residents. Also, foreign workers may stay in office for no more than 4 years.

🔸 “Just Pay Up" – 8/10 – In general, solid minerals tax is about 7%, and there is also a 2.5% tax on the exploitation of deposits. Every year, miners pay an additional extra tax, the amount of which is set annually by the state. The tax on oil is 12.5-15%.

🔸 "You Come – You Build" – 6/10 – There are general obligations for the development of local communities, but their specific size is only defined in separate agreements.

🔸 “We’ll Do It Ourselves” – 6/10 – Part of the mining revenue goes to the Fonds de développement minier, which co-finances exploration, state control and supervision, and the development of the mining sector.

🔸 “Come Here, You Bast*rd!” – 6/10 – There are no serious problems with sovereignty over the deposits, but illegal gold mining is almost twice as high as legal (approximately 30t of undeclared gold exports vs. 14t of declared)

Final score is 7.3 out of 10 — a little less that of Tanzania, but fairly good. Obligations to develop local communities, encourage local processing, and combat illegal gold mining are mostly sagging.

#Niger #ResourceNationalism

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⚙️ Nigeria’s Unrealized Potential
Why billion-dollar domestic processing plants never really started

In Nigeria, more than $8 billion has been spent over 50 years on the Ajaokuta steel project and the plant still has no commercial steel output. That fact captures a common pattern of Nigerian resource processing factories built in the 1980s - 2000s, which hardly moved from “commissioned” to “working.”

⏩ How could it be that Nigeria had already created a huge industrial potential, but for some reason has never taken advantage of it?

What kind of industry Nigeria built in the 1980-1990s:

Steel and Aluminium:
🔸 Ajaokuta Steel Company — idle since 1994 to present;
🔸 ALSCON (Aluminium Smelter) — largely dormant since 2007 with brief revival attempts;
🔸 National Ore Mining Company — effectively moribund for many years after 2008;
🔸 Delta Steel Company — mostly idle until a private restart effort after 2018;
🔸 Jos Steel Rolling Company — moribund by the 2000s;
🔸 Osogbo Steel Rolling Mill — plant left idle since 2005;
🔸 Katsina Steel Rolling Mill — moribund by mid-2000s and sold in 2006 after closures;

Oil:
🔸 Warri Refining & Petrochemical Company — repeated stoppages, largely idle from late 2010s onward;
🔸 Port Harcourt Refining Company — prolonged shutdowns, largely idle from 2019 onward;
🔸 Kaduna Refining & Petrochemical Company — prolonged shutdowns and very low utilisation, especially from late 2010s onward.

Paper and Pulp:
🔸 Iwopin Pulp & Paper — stopped by 1996–1998 and idle thereafter;
🔸 Newsprint Manufacturing Company — shut in 1994, long-term dormancy followed;

Sugar:
🔸 Savannah Sugar Company — stoppages through the 1990s–2000s, later privatized.

⏩ All this accounts for almost $90 billion in investments.

But why so many plants never truly started?

🔸 Liberal reforms in 1985-1990s (aka "Structural Adjustment") facilitated imports of foreign end products, making newly built domestic factories unprofitable.

🔸 The government failed to maintain policy consistency and predictability. In 1988-1993 and from 1999 onwards the government embarked on privatization, with concessions and privatizations often becoming court fights. Years of arbitration froze assets and scared off operators.

🔸 Poor planning: too often project designs relied mainly on imported spares, chemicals, and equipment, which made them idle each time when foreign exchange dried up nationwide.

🔸Factory projects also often required that additional infrastructure be built, without which they could not operate due to the lack of existing facilities. When subcontractors or the government failed, enterprises were deprived of gas and power, rail links, raw materials.

The government has tried to fix the situation through new partnerships, further privatization, sector and individual reactivation plans.

This, however did not fix fuel, feedstock, and poor logistics. Many of the factories that have been staying idle since the 1990s are now technologically obsolete and covered with rust - once you touch them, you will hear a lot of noise.

Nigeria’s “commissioned-but-never-launched” factories were not accidents. They were outcomes of projects built without reliable inputs, power, and logistics, which dropped into volatile policy weather and weak governance. This needs to be taken into account if the country plans to move from resource extraction to domestic value-addition.

#PolicyReview #Nigeria

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🇱🇷 Who Is Liberia's New Mines Minister

Last week Liberia's President Joseph Boakai has replaced Wilmot J. M. Paye with R. Matenokay Tingban at Mines and Energy as the government courts U.S. capital for lithium, cobalt, manganese and rare earths.

We've discussed who was the former minister, but who leads Liberian mines now?

🔸 Tingban worked for years inside the Ministry of Mines and Energy and later served as Deputy Minister under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, giving him hands-on experience with concessions and the ministry’s daily operations. He also got elected in the legislature, representing Nimba District #9 and in 2016 he chaired the House Committee on Lands, Mines, Energy and Natural Resources.

⏩ This appointment will speed up deal-making and shape the flow of new mining investment into Liberia.

🔸 In contrast to his predecessor, he is a system technocrat, and not a manifesto politician. He knows concession paperwork and how ministries interact with investors, which makes him an easy counterpart for companies exploring new critical-minerals projects. The timing, alongside a broader reshuffle, is meant to project predictability to investors.

🔸 The country's ministerial reshuffle is openly aimed at attracting foreing investors in mining, with iron ore still being the main source of country's exports revenues. On October 16 Liberia’s Foreign Minister Nyanti met US' Marco Rubio to discuss Washington’s interest in Liberia’s critical minerals sector.

Bringing in investment and diversifying beyond iron ore is good, but Liberia also needs to grow non-extractive sectors. For now, the government’s clearest signal is deeper cooperation with the United States on minerals, not a whole-economy diversification drive.

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🇿🇲 I’m American. Trust me.

🌐 How much do you like donuts? Lately mining comapnies started to change their legal address to the US to get a slice of Trump's push for critical minerals. That is the story behind Indian group Vedanta that just created a US company to hold its copper ambitions in Zambia.

🔸 Vedanta Group, which has been the central player at Zambia's Konkola Copper Mines for years, announced a US-domiciled vehicle called CopperTech Metals, which will take control of all its assets in Zambia, framing it as part of America’s copper security. The creation of CopperTech Metals comes as companies look to capitalise on renewed US government support for the mining sector.

🔸 The company needs to raise $1.5B, which will cover the company’s commitment to invest $1bn to revive KCM under a deal it made in 2023 to regain control of the mine after Zambia’s government seized it in 2019. They did not spell out the exact mechanism that will help find the funds in the US, but the most likely considerations are easier access to the US stock listing, access to American institutional investors, eligibility for federal loans and guarantees, the chance to apply for grants.

⏩ While foreign holdings move their subsidiaries to the US, genuinely American investors are not that eager to invest in Africa ⏪

🔸 Recently the US has shown interest in the critical mineral wealth of the DRC, Liberia, Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, South Africa. However, bare interest isn't enough, while American companies have not made any large investment committments in mining or beneficiation.

Even if all was avout real American investment, the US will not outrun China soon. China’s strength is not only in the mines. It dominates the next steps - concentrates, refining, cathodes, chemicals, components. The US does not have this full industrial base yet.

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🇳🇬 Louvre or Nigeria's Forests?

🌐 Where do you think the biggest thieves' jackpot is: in the Louvre in central Paris or in some god-forsaken forests of one of the most underdevelopped African countries? The second answer is correct. An interim report to Nigeria’s Senate puts crude-theft losses since 2015 at about 300 billion dollars. That equals roughly 8-9 annual federal budgets at today’s scale.

🔸 Nigeria has chased this problem for years, with special rigour from 2020 onwards. In 2023 the state issued new upstream measurement rules to tighten metering at wells and terminals. In 2025 a new export-tracking regime added unique IDs and real-time data for cargoes, in addition to more usual "kinetic" measures - police and army operations, engagement of private security companies.

🔸 Previously it was believed that the damage dealt by oil theft was much more modest - only about 46 billion dollars between 2009 and 2020. The Senate figure now on the table shows the losses far above that.

⏩ Corruption and bribery among Nigeria's bureaucracy are apparently the key part of the problem. ⏪

🔸 It has long been known that parts of agencies and security units make money by opening and protecting the chain that moves stolen crude from a tap to an export point - from fake maintenance windows and slow patrols to meter readings being often pushed down at flow stations and terminals so that legal cargoes can hide extra volumes. What comes out is a corruption ladder with a cut at the tap, a cut on the river and a cut at the terminal.

🔸 Frequently Nigeria's former militant networks profit as well. Some hold state contracts to guard pipelines and still collect private fees on the same routes. They provide escorts for barges, arrange safe anchorage and help move product into depots where it is mixed with legal fuel.

Nigeria's politicians has long been declaring the victory over oil theft, but this report shows that oil theft is here to saty. It seems that the best antidote to an illegal fuel market is a population that does not need it. Higher incomes, affordability of new cars will probably kill the demand for stolen petrol.

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🥇 Gold From Mercury?
[ #SetTheRecordStraight ]

Have you ever dreamed of learning how to turn mercury into gold, like medieval alchemists? Artisanal miners can easily do this - and that's part of the problem with artisanal gold mining, though.

You've probably heard of harmful, environmentally damagin and often illegal artisanal & small-scale mining (ASM), which poisons soil and feeds militant groups. Even when you try to google or ask an AI about the volumes of illegal gold mining in this or that place, the response will show you the volumes of ASM production, associating it with illegality.

However, is ASM that peremptorily dangerous and illegal?

🔸 Artel mining means small groups or family crews extracting minerals with simple tools and basic machines. In many African countries these crews can register, get permits, and work inside areas reserved for small-scale mining.

🔸 People often call it illegal because headlines group all pits under one label, sites look chaotic, paperwork is hard to obtain, and enforcement is uneven. Licensed and unlicensed crews may work side by side, so the public sees one picture.

🔸 What's more, many miners use chemicals that harm the environment. Mercury is common in gold recovery, and cyanide appears in some sites. Rivers and soils become contaminated, fish and people face exposure, and health problems follow. Safer options exist, including gravity concentration and mercury-retort use, though they need additional investments and training.

⏩ For many communities this is the only way to survive and earn their living. Income from small-scale mining pays food and transport, feeds local trade when there are no enterprises and basically no other living economy in the area. In Zimbabwe, Cameroon, CAR and Uganda ASM accounts for the major part of all official (declared) gold production, exceeding the output of large-scale enterprises.

Illegal ASM only thrives where there is bureaucratic obstacles, insurgents and militants, poor population. Increase overall wellbeing, facilitate permit acquisition processes and control your borders - and there will be no illegal mining and no mercury pollution.

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✏️ Koh-i-Noor's Paradise [ #MineralsInNumbers ]

One does not need to be a professional painter to know how a simple pencil is designed - a graphite core + some wood around it. Given that a major part of the world's graphite production comes from Africa - namely Madagascar - we've decided to count how many pencils we could produce from Madagascar's annual output.

Madagascar’s graphite doesn’t only live in pencils, though it moderates neutrons in nuclear reactors, forms the workhorse anode in lithium-ion batteries, and shows up in lubricants, refractories, and conductive additives across electronics and chemistry.

🔸 So, how many pencils would Madagascar’s output make? In 2024 the country produced an estimated 89,000 tonnes of natural graphite concentrate. To count only pure graphite, we convert using typical Malagasy flake grades of about 95%, which gives some 84,500 tonnes of carbon. A standard wood-case pencil contains roughly 0.8 g of graphite per pencil. Do the math and you get about 108 billion pencils from 2024’s output.

(For context, the world makes a bit over 14 billion pencils a year)

⏩ However, with such an impressive output, Madagascar cannot fully benefit of its wealth.

🔸 All large-scale producers are foreign-owned: NextSource Materials (Canada) operates the country's Molo mine with high-purity “SuperFlake” concentrate, while Tirupati Graphite (UK-listed, India-based) operates the Vatomina and Sahamamy projects. Indeed, there are Malagasy firms with smaller footprints, but publicly reported tonnages are modest compared to the foreign projects.

🔸 And where does the graphite go? Almost all of it leaves the island. In 2023, Madagascar exported about 61,000 tonnes of natural graphite against total mine output of 63,000 tonnes, implying minimal domestic use and near-total export. Madagascar does not yet have significant downstream battery-anode or even pencil manufacturing, so the concentrate is shipped to processors abroad.

One does not need to be a professional painter or physician to see, how much Madagascar loses on lack of local processing. Let's hope when the dust settles after the recent political turmoil, the country will tackle this injustice.

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🇨🇩 Dispose of the Waste Properly

Do you get clean drinking water from the tap? In Congolese Lubumbashi it suddenly became a question with no easy answer.

🌐 In early November a tailings pond at the near Chinese copper-cobalt site burst and sent acidic water into the city. The site is Congo Dongfang International Mining (CDM), a unit of China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, a giant in battery materials that buys and processes a big share of the DRC’s cobalt and copper.

🔸 The DRC mines minister who rushed to Lubumbashi, toured the site and announced a three-month suspension of CDM’s activities.

The company's discharge basin does not meet any environmental standards. It has a complete absence of tightness, structural balance, control devices and emergency plan. This neglect has caused obvious pollution of the waters and exposed the populations to serious health risks.

⏩ Thus, the polite minister merely stated that the company was actually just dumping its waste without any serious protective measures and facilities. ⏪

🔸 This is not the first shutdown for environmental reasons. In 2023 the mines ministry froze Boss Mining, which belongs to the Kazakh group ERG, after mine waste flooded into the Kakanda area.

🔸 So far officials in Lubumbashi say four neighbourhoods were affected. Locals say that the company's waste storage breaks out all the time and a toxic smell is often felt in the city.

One tonne of copper from a Congolese mine today sells for about 11,000 dollars - which equals roughly 1,500 Congolese minimum wages. Many companies have super profits, but they don't have the integrity to make their work at least a little safer.

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🇳🇪 French Jealousy

Yellow, powdery, a little bitter on the tongue — what is it?

🌐 It is 1,000 tonnes of uranium concentrate, the so-called yellowcake, that Niger’s authorities are, according to the French press, preparing to sell to Russia's Rosatom for about 170 million dollars. The stock is linked to the Arlit site controlled until 2024 by France’s Orano.

🔸 Le Monde says the two sides have already signed a "memorandum of mutual understanding" and are mapping a route from Arlit across Burkina Faso to ports in Togo to sell the yellowcake to Rosatom - the Russian nuclear corporation.

But is this really what it looks like at first glance?

⏩ It does look like Niger and Russia have a deal of some kind on the table. Over the summer they signed a civil-nuclear cooperation MoU, and officials kept the conversation going into the autumn.⏪

🔸 Both sides reacted to Le Monde’s reporting with the same line: “Rosatom is not a party to the agreement.” That phrasing points to the core truth — an agreement exists, and it touches the yellowcake left in Arlit after the French exit, variously reported at about 1,400 to 1,500 tonnes.

🔸 What is likely happening: Niger has said many times it wants Russian help to build a nuclear power source. Officials repeated that goal at World Atomic Week in Moscow on 29 September. So the governments probably agreed to explore how such a project could work in practice.

⏩ Russia does not need Niger’s raw uranium for itself. Russia already mines uranium and controls a large slice of global enrichment.

🔸 The more practical play is to ship Niger’s material for processing in Russia into fuel, which Niger cannot do at home without huge technical systems and inevitable difficulties with IAEA oversight.

🔸 So what landed in Le Monde’s hands was likely a draft plan for a logistics bridge: move yellowcake out - process it in Russia - then ship finished fuel back for a future plant, let's say.

🔸 There is another brake too. Orano has an active arbitration and a World Bank order that tells Niger not to sell or transfer the disputed stock, which makes a straight sale unlikely before the legal fight ends.

If this reading is right, the idea of a nuclear plant in Niger may have shifted from symbolism to the agenda. Not tomorrow, not fast, but no longer just talk.

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💡 Resource Nationalism Index [ BURKINA FASO ]

Burkina Faso is one of the 3 countries of the western Sahel that have recently embarked on the path of stricter mining oversight and taxation policies. Since we've already covered its ideological and actual allies - Mali and Niger - let's look into the resource policies of Ouagadougou in our "Resource Nationalism Index" series.

Today Burkina Faso mostly sells abroad gold, which accounts for more than 70% of its exports.

So, what do the policies of Ouagadougou in relation to the natural wealth of the nation look like?

🔸 "Process It First" – 6/10 – For gold, there is a threshold of at least 50% of the production volume, which must be processed (refined) on the territory of Burkina Faso. Nevertheless, the first refining plant is just under construction (as of early November 2025).

🔸 "Share With the State” – 2/10 – No such policies in general, but, according to the law, the state may in theory require the payment of taxes in kind - that is, in gold - if it wants.

🔸 “We’re in Too!” – 9/10 – The government has the right to a free-of-charge share in each newly created mining company, which attains 15%. The government also has the right to buy out (or transfer to local investors the right to buy out) up to another 30% of the shares of the new enterprise.

🔸 “The Money's Yours, the People Are Ours" – 9/10 – Among all categories of personnel, the requirements of local residents employment share starts from at least 50%. A few years after the start of a company's operations, the threshold is set at about 90-100%.

🔸 “Just Pay Up" – 7/10 – Gold royalties range from 3 to 7% depending on the world prices (and then +1% for every $500 of the gold price over $2,000).

🔸 "You Come – You Build" – 8/10 – Gold miners pay a contribution to the Local Community Development Fund in the amount of 1% of the company's monthly turnover.

🔸 “We’ll Do It Ourselves” – 6/10 – Since 2023 the state supports the construction of a refining factory (the first in Burkina Faso). In theory, the law also provides for the creation of special economic zones.

🔸 “Come Here, You Bast*rd!” – 3/10 – Some remote areas rich in gold are in the hands of non-State armed groups. Artisanal gold mining has largely gone into the shadows, with illegal mining producing inflows of some $3B a year.

Final score is 6.3 out of 10 — a robust result, spoiled by weak state control of the national wealth and the absence of requirements to transfer a part of production to the government or sell it in the local market.

#BurkinaFaso #ResourceNationalism

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🇧🇼 Shopping Together, African-Style 🇦🇴

Do you and your fellows ever admire something you’d love to buy, but then remember the budget?

🌐 Yesterday Botswana and Angola’s mines ministers met to discuss exactly that kind of purchase: De Beers, a major world-scale diamond producer both countries covet. Its current owner Anglo American PLC has been trying to offload its 85% stake due to plunging diamond prices - and both Angola and Botswana made their bids.

The ministers met in Gaborone behind closed doors for about 40 minutes, and nothing important was disclosed to journalists.

⏩ For both countries, this purchase is like a Lamborghini for a normal man - both, in fact, do not have enough spare cash to sink into De Beers, and there’s a real question whether they need the company at all. ⏪

🔸 Botswana’s budget totals roughly $7 billion, with mineral revenues having been revised sharply down in 2024-2025. De Beers price is put at roughly $5 billion, while some think the fair cost is $3-4 billion. Either way, it is something Botswana can hardly afford.

🔸 Luanda’s 2025 budget is roughly $38 billion in 2025. Even so, the finance minister has already said the state budget will not fund the De Beers bid. So any money must come from elsewhere.

⏩ So… where’s the money, Lebowski?

🔸 Botswana’s president has signaled he wants outside money. In a late-September interview he said the government was talking to sovereign funds, including a Qatari-linked package and talks with the Omani Investment Authority.

🔸 Angola, for its part, has not disclosed its funding option, but today it hosts India’s president. With India being the world’s cutting and polishing hub, handling roughly 90% of diamonds by volume, this may hint at some investment talks.

🔸 After all, it is possible that at today's meeting the countries discussed a joint buying offer, which would allow them to share the costs.

All of this sounds bold, but natural diamonds are a shaky bet while lab-grown diamonds output surges and squeezes prices. For ordinary people, channeling scarce money into growth at home would be far more useful than buying a famous logo.

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🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation ]
A vivid illustration of how elites fight for resources — the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo

🔎 In our observation of African resource industries, we came across a fascinating story - illustrative of how elite politics works and how African gold becomes the subject of inter-elite rivalry with the example of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Prepare yourself for a trip through the wild world of Congolese the undercover struggle for gold rent. I promise that by the end, you'll have a much better understanding of what the struggle over African resources really is like.

🔗 Here are links, that will help you navigate through the story:

Chapter 1. A Cheerful Retirement

Chapter 2. Racketeering — a DIY Kit

An Important Remark

Chapter 3. A Bigger Fish


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🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation ]
Chapter 1: A Cheerful Retirement

Do you have plans for retirement? Personally, I want to save enough money and then just sit at home growing cabbage. But not everyone finds such a peaceful lifestyle appealing.

For example, businessman and banker, former DRC Vice Minister Victor Kasongo prefers racketeering and asset grabbing. After years of serving his homeland and former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, he decided to pursue something more exciting — and tried to seize the gold assets of the Canadian company Banro (spoiler: it didn’t work out as he planned).

👆 If that kind of leisure activity sounds interesting, let me tell you how it went in practice:

But first, let me introduce you to the Canadian company Banro. Banro was unlucky — the company bet everything on Congo and spectacularly lost in a brutal African roulette.

🔸 Initially, Banro tried to enter the DRC gold mining sector in the late 1990s but failed because of the 1998–2003 war.

🔸 When Banro finally gained access to the Congolese deposits — specifically Twangiza, Namoya, Kamituga, and Lugushwa — it took about ten more years of design and construction work before the Twangiza mine poured its first gold bar in 2012.

🔸 By the time the second mine, Namoya, produced its first gold in 2016, the company was already doomed, though that wasn’t yet obvious. After the opening of Namoya, company workers were attacked by local militias of the Mai-Mai Malaika group, who made money from artisanal mining at the same site.

🔸 Between 2016 and 2019, Banro had to suspend its operations at least three times because of these attacks, and after four Namoya employees were kidnapped in July 2019, Banro declared force majeure and permanently ceased all operations in the DRC.

⏩ Some local insurgents — sure, that happens all the time in these parts. But did that really mean they had to shut down completely? ⏪

🔸 Meanwhile, starting in 2014, the company had accumulated heavy debt with its main investors — the American Gramercy Fund Management and the Chinese Baiyin Nonferrous Group. Due to constant disruptions, Banro became unable to meet its obligations, leading to a restructuring in 2018, after which Baiyin and Gramercy significantly increased their stakes in the company. In the end, the Chinese held about 32% of Banro — an important number, remember it.

🔸 In 2020, after declaring force majeure, Banro initiated a preventive settlement procedure with its local creditors in the DRC. And this is where Victor Kasongo Shomari entered the scene — former Vice Minister of Mines, mining entrepreneur, associate (and possibly distant relative) of ex-President Joseph Kabila, and a senior figure in banks and funds that managed the economic interests of the former president and his entourage.

🔸 Kasongo heads the Shomka Group, which, according to him, obtained control over Banro’s assets through a ruling by the Commercial Court of Kinshasa during that same preventive settlement process — or so he claims loudly everywhere.

The funny thing is that before this process, Shomka Group had absolutely nothing to do with Banro - but we'll discuss it in the second part. Scroll down. 👇

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