💡 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

Devils Below

⚙️ 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

Devils Below

🇱🇷 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.

Devils Below

🇿🇲 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.

Devils Below

🇳🇬 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.

Devils Below

🥇 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.

Devils Below

✏️ 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.

Devils Below

🇨🇩 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.

Devils Below

🇳🇪 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.

Devils Below

💡 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

Devils Below

🇧🇼 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.

Devils Below

🇨🇩 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


Devils Below

🇨🇩 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. 👇

Devils Below

🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation ]
Chapter 2: Racketeering — a DIY Kit

One does not need a PHD to do racketeering - it as simple as that.

Kasongo himself claims that in June 2020 Banro approached him and his group of companies to help secure the safety of Banro’s workers from the attacks of the local militias. Allegedly, in exchange, Banro gave Kasongo the Namoya mine — first for temporary management, and then permanently. :)

In reality, the former vice minister simply decided to snatch the assets of a dying company, using his connections and his position within the elite formed under former President Kabila.

Here’s a clear step-by-step guide for beginners on how this is done:

🔸 Victor Kasongo was not only a former vice minister but also a former board member of several major Congolese banks — Banque Commerciale Du Congo (BCDC), BGFI Bank, and President Kabila’s investment vehicle Kwanza Capital.

🔸 In turn, BCDC was Banro’s main domestic creditor in 2020. Official Gazette publications about the preventive settlement process show that Banro’s subsidiary Namoya Mining S.A. owed BCDC around $10 million.

🔸 Putting two and two together, Kasongo decided to exploit the system and use the preventive settlement process to take Banro’s assets for himself at the expense of other creditors.

To pull off this scheme, Kasongo followed this playbook:

🔸 He first leveraged his connections within BCDC and possibly the government, promising both parties a share of the potential benefits from transferring Banro’s assets into his hands.

🔸🔸 Then he approached the Chinese — Baiyin Nonferrous Group, which, as noted, had increased its share in Banro in 2018. By 2020, Baiyin apparently sensed where things were heading, decided to part ways with the unlucky Canadians, and accepted Kasongo’s offer. According to filings from the Company Register of Hong Kong, Baiyin obtained in his company the same 35% share it had in Banro.

🔸🔸🔸 Finally, Kasongo contacted Banro, demanding that, as part of the settlement process with BCDC, the Namoya mine be transferred for temporary management to Shomka Resources — a company from the Shomka Group, registered in Hong Kong shortly beforehand precisely to intercept Banro’s assets.

... And there is also an even more criminal nuance 👇

Devils Below

🤔 Why Call It Racketeering?

It is possible that the ex-Vice Minister himself was responsible for the attacks on gold mines.

🔸 Victor Kasongo himself claims that Banro approached him and his company to help negotiate with local armed groups.

🔸 Now look at how these “negotiations” are described in one of the two company presentations prepared for potential investors at the Mining Indaba conference in South Africa in early 2024 (which can be accessed through Shomka Group Holdings’ website with a few simple legal maneuvers).

⏩ There is no evidence that Kasongo had any direct link to the militias attacking Banro between 2016 and 2019. ⏪

However, given that
🔸 the former Vice Minister hails from the same region where the Namoya mine (which had been persitently attacked) is located,
🔸 Banro suddenly approached him for help securing the site - and that he supposedly managed to “solve” the problem so quickly and effectively

It’s hard not to see a striking resemblance to a pre-planned extortion scheme.

A pre planned extortion scheme, that went totally wrong. 👇

Devils Below

🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation ]
Chapter 3: A Bigger Fish

Picture this: a man sipping coffee on the Caribbean coast, breathing in the humid Colombian air. A month later, he’s appointed special envoy of the Congolese president, trying to navigate the twists of local politics — or rather, to find out where money might be siphoned from.

⏩ This is how the second key player enters our story — Luc Gérard Nyafé — whose group of companies called Stratégos is still fighting Kasongo's Shomka Resources for ownership of Banro’s former assets.

🔸 Nyafé is believed to be a South American businessman of Congolese origin who made his fortune in Colombia managing the investment fund Tribeca Asset Management, the Stratégos Group, and two mining firms — Auplata Mining Group and La Compagnie Minière de Touissit (Morocco).

🔸 In the DRC, he was virtually unknown until 2019, when he suddenly appeared at a meeting with President Tshisekedi in February 2019 (just a month after Tshisekedi had been sworn in himself) and was soon appointed his special envoy.

🔸 Luc Gérard Nyafé adapted quickly. Within a year of his appointment, one of his companies — Stratégos Group LLC — was selected as the contractor for the Special Economic Zone Maluku project near Kinshasa. By September 2021, it was already known that Stratégos planned to buy Banro’s assets.

⏩ At this point, Kasongo’s illegal scheme encountered an unexpected obstacle — the ambitions of the new president’s favorite.

🔸 Apparently, at some point Banro changed its mind about giving away its assets for free and demanded that Shomka withdraw from the site. Instead, in December 2022 Banro reached an agreement to sell its assets to Luc Gérard Nyafé, although the details of that deal remain unknown.

🔸 The only information available suggests that Nyafé sought Chinese investors for the purchase, as the holding that took ownership of the assets was named Oriental Jinzi (see the letter from Stratégos to Namoya Mining S.A. employees below). Locals believe that the investor is the company Zinji, noting the syllable swap “Zin-ji” / “Jin-zi,” although in Chinese "Jinzi" simply means “gold.”

⏩ But even here, things didn’t go as planned.

🔸 First, the special envoy apparently fell out of favor quite quickly — in April 2022 Stratégos Group LLC lost the right to develop the SEZ, and by April 2023 Nyafé had left his post entirely.

🔸 Second, it appears that before Nyafé entered the scene, in 2021, the Commercial Court of Kinshasa had already approved a debt settlement agreement between Banro and its creditors, leaving Shomka with certain residual rights to the mines. It’s quite possible that the settlement reached in April 2021, under the supervision of the court, allows Shomka to claim not monetary compensation but an actual equity stake — one that Stratégos now refuses to share.

To this day, Nyafé and Kasongo continue to dispute ownership of the mines — which, in the meantime, remain idle.

Who will eventually come out victorious in this story? Nobody knows. What we can tell for sure is who will actually lose - it is ordinary Congolese who will lose the most - jobs and tax revenues, while big guys try to sort things out.

Devils Below

🇦🇪 UAE: Neocolonial Power or Intermediary
[ #InterestsAndAssets ]
UAE's Interests in Africa's Gold

⏩ Have you ever wondered why Switzerland is associated with gold and jewels?

🔸 For decades, Switzerland was a place where the business interests of rivals could meet. Nazi Germany and the Allies, then NATO and the USSR, all found a neutral marketplace there.

⏩ Today that kind of place is Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. In 2024 alone the UAE imported 748 tonnes of gold from African countries which almost matches the entire volume of Africa's official gold production.

Let’s look at where exactly African gold in the UAE comes from.

🔸 First, there are legal Emirati investments in a number of major gold producers in Mali, Sudan and Ghana.

The key projects are:

🔸 Sadiola complex, Mali — UAE-linked Ambrosia Investment Holding holds 50% of Allied Gold’s operations at the Sadiola gold mine in the eastern Mali.

🔸 Asante Gold, Ghana — UAE-linked Fujairah Holding and Emiral Resources hold significant shares of Bibiani and Chirano gold mines in Ghana.

🔸 Alliance for Mining, Sudan — UAE-linked Emiral Resources’ subsidiary operates the country’s largest gold mine in Sudan’s in Red Sea State.

🔸 Second, there is almost legal international trade

The UAE provides excellent conditions for gold trading - there is practically no transparency and compliance with international standards. Many governments use this quite openly and officially - at UAE refineries, gold from Rwanda (from the DRC) is found along with sanctioned gold from Russia.

🔸 Finally, criminal networks

The light-touch environment does not only benefit clever governments. It also helps armed groups who seize gold and buy weapons with the proceeds. One way to spot this is a gap between what Country X says it exported and what Dubai says it imported from Country X.

The biggest gaps show up in:

🔸

Mali - 95 t

🔸

Ghana - 85 t

🔸

Niger - 45 t

🔸

Nigeria - 40 t

🔸

Uganda - 35 t

⏩ Sometimes the UAE even supports the insurgents itself - only over the last weeks we’ve learned a lot about how interested Emirati groups support the RSF in Sudan and the Islamists in Mali, from whom the UAE bought two hostages for $50-70 million.

None of this means the UAE is the mastermind of a new colonial project, though. It shows that big business and organized crime always find it easier to meet in places where undercover affairs are allowed If the UAE didn't exist, another small, but trade-loving country would take its place.

Devils Below

🥡 I'd like 60 to go
[ #MineralsInNumbers ]

How much money can a normal man earn in his life? Can it be $11 million?

⏩ Maybe yes, maybe no. But this - $11 million - is how much of mineral wealth is being sold to China by African countries each hour.

🔸 In 2024 China imported about $116.8 billion from Africa, of which resource sales to China made up around $95–$102 billion - call it about $100 billion.

🔸 The leading suppliers of the PRC in Africa are DRC for copper and cobalt (about $21.9 billion), Angola for crude oil (about $17.6 billion), South Africa for iron ore, gold and manganese, Guinea for bauxite (roughly $7.6 billion), then Zambia (copper), Republic of the Congo (crude) and Gabon (manganese and oil).

⏩ I bet you've never held such sums in your hands - neither have I. So, for better understanding - $100 billion equals close to 66 times the cost of the famous Burj Khalifa, commonly benchmarked near $1.5 billion.

🔸 Sadly, this is not enough to reach the moon. However this number would suffice to put at least one Burj Khalifa in each African country - and we would still have around 10 spare towers.

Given that enormous amounts of money, paid by the PRC for resources, do you feel like there could be a Burj Khalifa in your parts?

Devils Below

💡 Resource Nationalism Index [ GHANA ]

Ghana is one of our favourite countries in the West Africa. Some time ago people used to call it "Gold Coast" for there is so much gold in Ghana that it almost literally lies underfoot.

However, when resources are abundant, they are also hard to control. Let's look into how Ghana copes with its wealth in our "Resource Nationalism Index" series.

Not surprising, gold is by far Ghana’s leading mineral export. Also Ghana exports some crude oil.

So, what do the policies of Ghana in relation to its natural wealth look like?

🔸 "Process It First" – 2/10 – Ghana has announced plans to impose some bans on unprocessed materials exports, however, even this only concerns minerals like bauxite, lithium and so on - without any restrictions on gold.

🔸 "Share With the State” – 6/10 – The government has the first right to purchase any minerals produced in Ghana before they are sold externally, should the government need those minerals for local industries or strategic purposes. Besides, Ghana's Gold Board has a monopoly to buy gold from small-scale miners.

🔸 “We’re in Too!” – 6/10 – The government is entitled by law to a free carried interest of 10% + large mining rights holders are required to list at least 20% of their equity on the Ghana Stock Exchange.

🔸 “The Money's Yours, the People Are Ours" – 9/10 – All small-scale mining is reserved for Ghanaian citizens, and in large-scale mining almost all employments must be localized within 3 years of operations.

🔸 “Just Pay Up" – 3/10 – For gold and other major minerals, the government’s revenue take includes only a 5% gross flat royalty.

🔸 "You Come – You Build" – 2/10 – Currently there is no separate community development requirements, however Ghana’s government has announced plans to introduce ones.

🔸 “We’ll Do It Ourselves” – 8/10 – New manufacturing entities in Ghana’s free zones may get a 10-year tax holiday. Additionally, Ghana has two major state corporations producing aluminium and iron, and a state-run oil producer GNPC. The state supports local gold refineries. Ghana also has a sovereign Minerals Income Investment Fund which takes stakes in mining.

🔸 “Come Here, You Bast*rd!” – 3/10 – there are no rebel groups, however, Ghana faces a serious challenge with illegal mining operations, locally called “galamsey”, which account roughly for 30% of the country's gold production.

Ghana gets a final score of 4.9 out of 10. Ghana is a country of contrasts - widespread illegal mining, primitive taxation and absence of raw exports restrictions coexist with strong local personnel promotion and the state's proactive role in investments.

#Ghana #ResourceNationalism

Devils Below

How Do Offshore Companies work? (not the way you think)
[ #SetTheRecordStraight ]

The British Virgin Islands citizens are very, very talented and enterprising. The Islands host about 360,000+ active companies while the islands have around 39,000 people. That is 9-10 companies per capita.

⏩ Many people think mining companies register offshore to avoid paying local taxes. Sadly, many are wrong.

🔸 For long time in most countries in Africa and beyond, foreign firms have been prohibited from holding mining rights directly. The law asks them to create a local subsidiary for the license and the day-to-day work.

🔸 As a result one cannot just register an offshore entity and forget about taxes, which are in any case charged on the local subsidiary.

🔸 Yet companies continue to create intermediaries between the local subsidiary and the real owner, registered 5–7 thousand kilometres away from the pit.

⏩ So, why add an offshore layer?

🔸 First, access to international capital. Big investors prefer to buy a slice of a neutral holding that can list in London or New York and follow familiar company law.

🔸 The second thing is confidentiality. Offshore centres like Barbados or British Virgin Islands often do not disclose ownership structures to general public. Whether you are a geopolitics lover or a simple corruption enjoyer - hop on.

🔸 Finally, access to arbitration. It's convenient to have contracts governed by a system that courts and arbitrators know well. Mauritius is one such hub. It supports modern arbitration and even allows appeals to the UK Privy Council in some cases.

⏩ But can you still cut taxes? Of course, in some ways you can.

🔸 In many places, if you sell a mining company, you must pay tax on the sale. If there is a holding in the middle, the seller can trade that company instead of the local operator - thus, no exit tax.

🔸 Plus you can route part of your group’s work through the offshore holding. For example, accounting - then the local taxable profit goes down and more cash remains within the holding.

As simple as that.

However, in general offshore companies have lost a lot of their old shine. They no longer let poor multinational giants skip national budgets at will. Today they are mainly used for raising money, sharing risk, keeping paperwork clean.

Devils Below

🇳🇪 Not the Easiest Place to Start

🌐 Turkey’s energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar says Turkey has completed the first phase at its gold field in Niger.

🔸 In October 2024 Ankara and Niamey signed a memorandum to work together in mining. A Turkish ministerial team also visited Niamey in July 2024 to deepen cooperation across energy, mining, and security.

🔸 Turkey maintains its presence in Niger through MTA International Company - a state-run mining company, which has been engaged in exploration in Niger since 2020.

⏩ This would be Turkey’s first overseas gold project and Niger’s only industrial-scale gold operation. Samira Hill, long described as the country’s sole industrial gold mine, was nationalized in August 2025 and is in transition.

Besides investments, it's a chance for Niger to diversify its network of partners beyond Paris - Beijin - Moscow triangle.

Devils Below