🇹🇩 Chinese Matchmaker
Chinese interests as a common ground for Niger and Chad

🌐 The Minister of Petroleum of Chad, Ndolonogie Naimbaye Alixe, has just concluded a very fruitful visit to Niger, during which representatives of Chad’s oil regulator ARSAT, the Nigerian public oil company SONIDEP and banking institution BSIC Tchad signed an agreement on the supply of fuel from Niger to Chad.

🔸 Although Chad exports crude oil, Chadians themselves suffer from fuel shortages. According to media reports, the country’s only refinery near N'Djamena is underoperating at around 1/3 to 2/3 of its maximum capacity.

⏩But the fuel sales do not tell the whole story here. Judging by the media reports and the presence of representatives of the Chinese oil giant CNPC at the meeting (the man dozing sweetly on the right side of the photo), another important topic of the meeting was the proposed Niger-Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project.

🔸 The pipeline was supposed to connect CNPC's assets in Niger and Chad with an export port in Cameroon, but the project was put on hold in 2019 due to misunderstandings between the neighboring governments.

Now that the countries are facing the need to relaunch their collaboration, CNPC will spare no effort to build to line of cooperation from crude deposits in Niger and Chad all the way to the Gulf of Guinea.

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🇨🇳 Communists Return?

🌐 Xi Jinping's right-hand man, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, has arrived on a two-day visit to Zambia - not for a holiday, but to implement a crucial Chinese project in the region.

🔸 During the trip, he will meet with Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema to sign an agreement under which the state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation will be responsible for the modernization of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, known as TAZARA.

⏩ The road is an unexpected legacy of Mao Zedong era, built in 1975 with Chinese assistance and known as the "Freedom Railway," which became a key part of China's aid program in Africa as a counterbalance to European colonialism.

Today, the road's modernisation continues to serve as a contrast to Western projects, particularly the Lobito Corridor from Angola to the resources of Zambia and the DRC. However, China's own approach today is driven by purely pragmatic market interests.

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🔴 Bureaucratic Limbo in Ghana

It is believed that democracy is a good thing - everyone can express their very important opinion on virtually any issue. But here's the counterargument: Ghana, a country that, without a strong hand, is drowning in mercury from illegal mining, and endless discussions do not even allow it to diversify away from gold even a little bit — the country's first lithium mining project has been circulating in parliament for three years without result.

🌐 In October 2023, the government submitted a bill to parliament that other countries would have jumped at. The Atlantic Lithium company's project was to become Ghana's first industrial lithium deposit, supplying spodumene concentrate to the global battery market. Today this deal is still under consideration.

🔸 Back then the opposition in Parliament, consisting of the now ruling NDC party, criticized the project and ratification was delayed. Then lithium prices fell and Atlantic Lithium requested more favorable terms. Now the NDC itself is trying to push the agreement through.

🔸 On paper, the agreement is designed in an unusually beneficial way for the state by international standards. Ghana would have a 19% stake, increased royalties 1% of the project's revenue would go to a local community development fund.

⏩ Nevertheless, the project is under constant criticism and may now prove unviable due to low profitability.

It is clear that large companies need to be harnessed and everything needs to be double-checked 10 times before a contract is awarded. But in a country where the riverbanks look like a lunar landscape due to illegal artisanal gold mining, it would be better not to delay projects that can create jobs and diversify the economy.

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🇺🇬 First Time is Always Very Exciting

🌐 Although no one seemed to ask, the Ugandan authorities announced that their oil pipeline to Tanzania is 75% ready. Uganda is already preparing to send off the first barrel of oil.

🔸 The 1,443 km oil pipeline, costing about $5 billion, will transport oil from Ugandan fields owned by France's TotalEnergies and China's CNOOC to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.

🔸 The issue has been dragging on for almost two decades, from the discovery of the fields to the current stage. During this time, Uganda tried to route the pipeline through Kenya, rewrote laws, attracted new partners, and increased the budget from $3.5 billion to $5 billion.

⏩ While the Chinese and French authorities solemnly announce their commitment to clean energu and green transition, their companies are just as solemnly rushing to Africa for new oil.

🔸 Over the previous month alone, TotalEnergies joined extraction projects in Namibia, Mozambique, and Nigeria, while Chinese oil giants such as CNOOC and CNPC are promoting their projects from Niger and Chad to Uganda.

Apparently, the French and Chinese believe that they can manage African oil much more ecologically than Africans themselves.

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🇬🇳 Sweet Dreams Are Made of Iron

Will Guinea become Africa's industrial giant?

🌍 Just one month before the presidential election, Guinea's Ministry of Mines is once again speaking of ambitious plans to create industrial capacity - including up to 7 million tons of aluminum per year by 2030, plus an iron processing plant at the Simandou complex.

"We are the biggest bauxite producer in the world now… but we don't have any refineries built since colonial times... This will change"

🔸 Back in 2022-2023, the country decided to rectify this injustice and required all bauxite producers to submit projects and begin construction of aluminum plants by 2027. So far the first such plant, built with the support of the Chinese state-owned company SPIC, should be completed by the end of 2027.

⏩ On the other hand, the Chinese are in no hurry to share their iron. Just a few days ago, the country ceremoniously opened the world's largest high-grade iron ore deposit in Simandou, whose developers were initially also required to build a steel plant within the country. But the Chinese refused, so the government now has to settle for promises from operators to study the possibility of building such a plant.

Guinea is trying to move from exporting raw ore to manufacturing on its own territory, and this path depends on a reliable energy supply, predictable rules, and the state's ability to balance pressure on foreign mining groups with the need for long-term investment.

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🇳🇦 it Is Never Too Late to Pump

Some dream of outer space, while others dream of digging deeper

🌍 TotalEnergies and Chevron have set their sights on a $10 billion field in Namibia.This asset, the Mopane oil field, was discovered in 2024 during a series of breakthrough oil discoveries in Namibia.

🔸 Namibia does not have its own oil production yet, but it desperately wants to - since the early 2020s, several large fields have been discovered in the country, including Mopane. Namibia's authorities expect the country to become one of the 15 largest oil producers by 2035.

🔸 Proven oil reserves in Namibia amount to approximately 15.1 billion barrels. Current production plans are projected at around 150,000 barrels per day, with first oil expected in 2029–2030.
🔸 The government's goal is to reach 500,000 barrels per day by the mid-2030s, which would place the country between Algeria and Qatar in terms of production levels.

🔸 Namibia's road to oil power status dates back to the middle of the 20th century. A lot off exploration work had been carried out, but to no avail. In addition, Namibia has long been a geopolitically toxic place.

⏩ Now that oil wealth has finally come to the country, will Namibians surely become rich? Perhaps, but most likely it will be the French and Americans who will get rich.

🔸 Unfortunately, it seems that Namibia has learned nothing from the experience of many other countries. The country's legislation provides for only a 10% state share in new oil projects, and oil royalties are only 5%.

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🇬🇭 A Lesson to Avoid

🌐 Against the backdrop of a catastrophic decline in oil production (down 26% compared to the previous year), the Ghanaian government has decided to take control of the country's largest undeveloped field in order to halt the decline.

🔸 The Afina field has been owned by the Ghanaian Springfield Group since 2016. In 2019, about 1.5 billion barrels of oil reserves were discovered there, but production never started.

Springfield Group is a Ghanaian energy conglomerate, one of the major indigenous players in Ghana’s petroleum sector. The group was founded by Ghanaian entrepreneur Kevin Okyere.

🔸 In 2020, the Ghanaian government itself provoked legal disputes that undermined further development. At that time, Ghanaian Energy Minister John Peter Amewu arbitrarily demanded that the block be developped by Springfield together with Italian oil major Eni, which Eni did not agree to.

⏩ The plan is the purchase of the block from Springfield by the state-run GNPC followed by a joint venture with another international oil giant, like Eni or Tullow Oil, which already control around 80% of the country's output.

Even if this works out and Ghana gets some extra oil in short term, it will thus kill the nascent sector of its own oil producers, favoring international giants.

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❓ Then Who Will Make the Mithril Coat?

The Chinese Embassy in the CAR warns its citizens that the gold rush in the Central African Republic could turn them into “mining slaves.”

🔸 The Chinese are one of the largest groups of foreigners arriving in Africa to try their luck at artisanal and often illegal gold mining.

🔸 For many countries - Mali, DRC, Ghana - the endless influx of Chinese enthusiasts has already become a disaster in terms of illegal mining, and Ghana has even restricted the issuance of visas to Chinese nationals.

🔸 Illegal mining is dangerous in any place. While since 2013, there has also been civil conflict in the CAR. Chinese operators have already paid a high price: in March 2023, nine Chinese workers were killed at the Chimbolo mine near Bambari, and since then there have been even more attacks on Chinese-run businesses.

Beijing's unusually sharp warning reflects the broader reality in the CAR: there is a lot of gold, governance is weak, and violence is a tool of business.

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⚠️ BREAKING: The EU Is Still Here

Amidst the millions of news stories about the Chinese in Africa, with the Americans sometimes in between, it is easy to forget that there is still such a thing as the EU. And the EU is still capable of taking real action to protect its interests.

🌐 South Africa and the European Union have signed a memorandum of understanding in Johannesburg on critical minerals and velue chains.

⏩ A couple of sentences without the Chinese, and that's enough. The main reason why the usually amorphous EU is so keen to diversify its supplies of metals needed for clean energy, computing, and defense is the fear of China, which has already restricted exports of critical minerals several times in recent years.

🔸 South Africa is already a world leader in the production of several minerals that the EU considers critical. It has the largest reserves of platinum group metals, is the largest producer of manganese and chromium, and is playing an increasingly important role in the extraction of vanadium and rare earth elements.

⏩ EU bureaucrats Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa are trying to portray the agreement as an initiative aimed to create processing volumes in South Africa. In exchange for minerals, EU leaders intend to invest in South Africa's energy sector and Transnet SOC Ltd, the country's major logistics company.

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At Least It's Fun

Who is trying to save Africa from another oil spill?

🌐 Against the backdrop of the G20 summit, eco-activists from the StopEACOP movement staged lively protests outside TotalEnergies' offices in South Africa.

🤝 StopEACOP is a coalition of about 250 civil society groups that began as a local protest against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Uganda and Tanzania. Over time, StopEACOP has become one of the most prominent campaigns against climate change in Africa.

⏩ The movement must be disliked on both sides of the geopolitical struggle, as it aims to stop the construction of a pipeline that will be used by both European TotalEnergies and Chinese CNOOC.

🔸 StopEACOP leaders are often arrested, as are ordinary members. In April 2025, 11 young protesters were arrested by Ugandan authorities after attempting to deliver a letter to the Commercial Bank of Kenya, and even more student activists were detained in August.

Despite some success in dissuading banks and insurers from participating in the project, it is clear that no civil society group can actually win over the combined forces of two competing groups of international capital, plus local authorities.

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🇲🇿 Triumphant Return

10 years for killing around 100 people – but it's not a prison sentence

🌐 Mozambique has granted TotalEnergies additional 4.5 years to implement its delayed LNG project in Cabo Delgado.

🔸 Recently, major companies such as Eni and TotalEnergies have lifted force majeure on their projects in Mozambique, that had been paused due to a surge in terrorist activity in the Cabo Delgado region in 2020-2021.

⏩ In this context TotalEnergies has asked the government to extend the Mozambique LNG project by 10 years to recompense the downtime, even though the project has only been on hold for 4.5 years, since April 2021.

⏩ The company also wanted to include an additional $4.5 billion in the project cost, which means in future it will be able to sell more gas before part of the production is transferred to the state.

🔸 Since 2024, TotalEnergies has been suspected of complicity in the mass murder of about 100 people by the Joint Task Force, a part of the Mozambican army supported by the company.

The next question is whether Mozambique will agree to reimburse the $4.5 billion in additional costs to the company, which may have be involved in the killings of its citizens. Mozambique's economy is heavily dependent on the resumption of its LNG projects after years of low revenues and high security costs.

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🇱🇷Profitable Investments

Although Liberia does not have its own oil production, corruption thrives in its oil fields.

🌐 At a public hearing in the Liberian Senate, lawmakers raised a fuss over multimillion-dollar corruption in the country's oil sector. In the context of French company TotalEnergies' entry into the country's oil industry, lawmakers decided to look into its partner - Nigeria's Oranto Petroleum — and that is precisely the company at the center of the scandal.

🔸 Lawmakers claim that Oranto acquired several oil blocks for US$250,000 in the late 2000s, did not conduct any drilling, and then in 2010 sold a 70% stake to Chevron for over US$200 million, with little to no benefit to the Liberian people. During the hearings, it emerged that Oranto had not been registered in Liberia for a long time.

🔸 Oranto Petroleum is owned by Arthur Eze, a Nigerian oil entrepreneur and one of the most influential private players in upstream in West and Central Africa.

🔸 Liberia opened its offshore basin after the civil war, signing eight contracts in 2004–2005 and several more in 2009, then watching activity fade as discoveries failed to materialize and companies left.

Liberia is trying to restart an oil sector that has delivered more promises than oil. Senate hearings show a desire to avoid another cycle of blocks changing hands without production, though the effect has been limited so far.

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🇨🇩 Qatar Does in Single Blow What Trump Couldn't

While Trump rushes around with his “deals” and his special representative in Africa, Massoud Boulos, solemnly shakes hands with all and sunder, there is a player on the geopolitical map who actually plays the Great Game - Qatar.

🌐 On November 21, 2025, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and President Felix Tshisekedi signed six new bilateral documents between Qatar and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Qatar is thus transforming its quiet mediating role between the DRC and Rwanda over the conflict in eastern DRC into large-scale economic influence.

🔸 The November 21 package includes: port cooperation between Mwani Qatar and the Congolese transport agency ONATRA, legal cooperation, a partnership with the Qatar Development Fund to finance international aid to the DRC, and so on.

⏩ But that's not the main thing — the main thing is investment in Congo's extractive sectors. Since the beginning of autumn, Qatari investors have been travelling to the DRC time and again as if it were their own home, striking new agreements on solid minerals and oil.

In particular, the agreements include:

🔸 Allocation of oil blocks in the DRC's Central Basin and Albertine Graben in the east to the Qataris. According to the plan, they are to be transferred to the state-owned company Sonahydroc, which will then develop them together with Amoc Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of Qatar's Al Mansour Holding, headed by the cousin of the Emir of Qatar.

🔸 The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) acquired a $500 million stake in Canadian Ivanhoe Mines. The latter is developing several deposits in Africa's mineral-rich copper belt, including Kamoa-Kakula and Kipushi mines

🔸 Al Mansour Holding will also develop Gateway City in Kasumbaleshwe on the border with Zambia, which is intended to be a new logistics and trade hub, making it easier to export extracted minerals.

⏩ In total, Qatar's Al Mansour Holding has signed 18 memoranda with the DRC on a planned investment package worth $21 billion. Other projects planned with the participation of this group include:

🔸 The launch of Congo Pharma, a local enterprise for the production of medicines and medical equipment.

🔸 A program to build about 1.5 million affordable housing units in major cities.

🔸 The modernization of several airports, in particular N'Dolo Airport in Kinshasa.

Fully justifying his status as a mediator, as well as the view that capital has no homeland and attachement, only interests, the Emir of Qatar flew to the DRC on November 21 directly from Rwanda, where he also promised investments, albeit much smaller ones - after all, the minerals are located in the DRC, not in Rwanda.

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🇬🇭 Ghana's Robin Hoods With Nuance

Sitting in the forest with a rifle, guarding a cache - is it Robin Hood? Guerrilla partisan? Answer: illegal gold miners in Ghana.

🌐 Ghana's forest reserves are not only being degraded by the illegal gold mining. In several places, they are taken over by armed groups who consider the forests their property.

➡️ The Ghana Institute of Foresters (yes, there is such a thing) has estimated that 5 forest reserves in the southeastern part of the country are under the control of armed illegal miners, and foresters cannot safely enter them. By early 2025, 9 forest areas had been taken over by militant miners and had almost become their strongholds. Some of them have been liberated, but more than half are still under siege.

➡️ More and more often illegal miners in Ghana take up arms to prevent forest rangers from confiscating their equipment and to avoid prison. Ghana's National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) becomes a target of complex premediated attacks. with ambushes, sieges and involvement of high-profile officials on both sides.

These Ghanaian mining guerrillas are a perfect example of what happens when illegal mining and corruption are ignored for too long.

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