Thanks for the advice. 👍

The Chinese ambassador in Ghana is busy gaslighting the local audience

🌐 Chinese ambassador Tong Defa has called on Ghana to take the problem of illegal gold mining seriously, claiming that the state is not acting decisively enough against galamsey.

🏮 As is well known, it is Chinese illegal migrants who make up the core of foreign illegal miners in Ghana. Since 2009, Ghana has deported at least 1,600 such fortune seekers and has recently tightened visa procedures particularly for PRC citizens.

👠 Nevertheless, the Chinese ambassador consistently acts like a toxic spouse. One moment Ghana is to blame for not granting Chinese nationals licenses, the next moment Ghanaians themselves are luring Chinese nationals to work in inhumane conditions, besides, Ghana is not fighting fiercely enough – and anyway, just look at what China helped you build and stop making noise!

🔸 Ghana really does need to take galamsey more seriously, but not because the ambassador said so — when 60% of water bodies are contaminated with mercury, that is already too much.

P.S. The video is from an earlier speech in June 2025.

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Tragedy in Sierra Leone

BBC reports a makeshift mine collapse in Sierra Leone

🌟 On 9 December, 16-year-old Mohammed Bangura and 17-year-old Yaya Jenne went down into a makeshift gold mine near Nyimbadu in Kono District, Sierra Leone, to earn money for their families. The walls of the pit, about 4 metres deep, collapsed, leading to the tragic death of the young miners.

Artisanal gold production in Sierra Leone reaches around 3 tonnes of gold a year, most of it illegally, including by parents and children who, instead of learning arithmetic, are forced to dig for gold to earn a living.

Unfortunately, neither a start of industrial production nor tighter state oversight will be able to eliminate such cases completely, because the main villain in this film is the surrounding poverty, pushing even children into mines.

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Guinean Pride
[ Cost of Greed ]

⚙️ Guinea-Conakry’s flagship industrial project may put its real treasure at risk

🥇 The railway from the Simandou iron ore project to a port on the Atlantic Ocean runs almost across the whole of Guinea, which has become a source of pride for the local authorities, some local patriots and the foreign beneficiaries of Simandou. However, many forget that the land on which the tracks lie did not belong to them alone.

🏷 A smidgen of background information:

🔴Simandou is Guinea’s flagship high grade iron ore project in the country’s southeast, the largest of its kind in the world.

🔴Simandou is so huge that it is being developed by two mining companies at once, the Chinese Winning Consortium and the Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto.

🔴The infrastructure backbone is its 600 km railway, where Rio Tinto and Winning each hold 42.5% and the Guinean state - the remaining 15% stake. The corridor includes a new railway running across Guinea, plus new coastal port facilities around the Moribaya estuary near Senguelen.

🛑 A railway this long inevitably disrupts animal migration routes, including those of forest elephants, of which only about 60-140 remain in Guinea at all. Both the railway and the deposit itself have already led to a reduction in the natural habitats of rare species. In the area of the deposit alone, at least 4 protected monkey species live – or already used to.

🧬 Beyond the fact that elephants will no longer be able to walk back and forth, there are also problems that affect people directly. Animals that can no longer find food in the forest now constantly come out onto farms and plantations, destroying crops.

As a result, Guinea is losing not only its iron ore, but also its native inhabitants, who lived there long before rails were ever invented.

#CostOfGreed

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Nostradamus Predicted This 🔮

After several years of indignant cries in the French press that Niger was just about invite the Russians to its uranium sites, these accusations have become reality

🌐 According to Niger's official media outlet, on 9 December 2025 Niger’s Timersoi National Uranium Company (TNUC) signed a memorandum with the Russian company Uranium One Group on cooperation in uranium extraction.

❓ Of course, they forgot to say where exactly the mining is planned and what timelines are set. Presumably, the easiest entry for the Russian company would be Niger's Arlit uranium site, previously run by France's Orano.

The French state company Orano has worked in Niger’s uranium sector for over 50 years, mainly through the SOMAÏR operation near Arlit (mining since 1971).

After the July 2023 coup, relations deteriorated, and in June 2025 Niger announced plans to nationalise SOMAÏR, while in December 2025 the row further sharpened after Niger accused Orano of environmental wrongdoing.

Why now?

There may be several reasons:
🔴 Niamey tried to mine on its own for a while but did not succeed
🔴OR Niamey was afraid of sanctions, but the recent manoeuvre with uranium trucks that showed up in the press demonstrated that Niger is free to do what it wants with its uranium and nothing will happen
🔴OR Niamey right now needs alternative sources of revenue because of attacks on oil infrastructure
🔴OR all of the above.

🔸 Now the main thing is not to fall into the same trap and make sure that the new foreign partners don't dump radioactive waste and walk away, as Orano did.

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🗣️ December 9, Trump:

"But I actually stopped the war with Congo and Rwanda, and they they said to me: 'Please, please, we would love you to come and take our minerals.' Which we'll do...” 👇

You Don't Know What Real Bureaucracy Is 🖨

Three years after the relaunch of a flare-gas-for-sale programme, Nigerian officials have finally got around to printing 28 licences

🌐 Nigeria’s upstream petroleum regulatory commission has just issued permits to 28 companies to access and sell associated gas.

❓ Associated gas is usually produced at oil fields together with crude but burned off in flares as oil producers deem it unprofitable — so the idea is to involve other companies in this task, so as to make the gas available to people and industry.

📈 At a ceremony on Friday, the head of the commission, Gbenga Komolafe, rushed to boast that measures aimed at commercialising associated gas would lead to:

🔴 The creation of 100,000 jobs

🔴 The production of 170,000 metric tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas annually to supply roughly 1.4 million households

🔴 And the attraction of up to $2 billion in investment

⏳ Most likely, such results are expected sometime around the year 2100 or 2300, since Friday’s event was about issuing licences to those who had submitted their applications back in 2022. Already in October 2023 the authorities said that 42 companies had successfully passed the same tender, but 14 apparently did not have the patience to wait.

🔸 Meanwhile, according to World Bank data, Nigeria remains one of the world’s top countries, alongside the US, Russia and Iran, in terms of the flared gas volumes. In 2023 and 2024 these volumes only increased.

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UAE Expansion Into Senegal

The UAE has staked out projects in Senegal’s most sweet sectors of gold, logistics and gas

🇸🇳 During a visit on 10 December, an Emirati delegation led by the UAE Minister of Foreign Trade sealed several agreements with Senegalese government and state-owned enterprises transferring the implementation of projects in Senegal's key resource sectors to Emirati companies.

⏩ Above all, the Senegalese state-owned Société des mines du Sénégal (SOMISEN) signed an agreement with the Emiratis to help create Senegal's new National Gold Trading Centre.

The National Gold Trading Centre announced on 12 November is Senegal's attempt to establish a national centralized hub for buying and selling gold, which will serve as an official bridge between production (above all, artisanal mining) and subsequent sales.

⏩ Besides, state-owned mining companies and Emirati firm Resources Investment agreed to develop jointly logistics infrastructure and iron mines.

⏩ Senegal's national gas distribution company Réseau gazier du Sénégal (RGS) signed several contracts with Emirati company Equiline Energies, which specialises in gas exploration.

🔸 The most important element is arguably the agreement on the National Gold Trading Centre. Now the Emiratis will help set up this centre, which means the UAE has managed to inserted itself into the country's main mining sector, which accounts for about 30% of Senegal's total extractive exports.

➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Liberia Is Bringing Americans to Africa Again

Liberia has approved the entry of a US company linked to the Trump administration into its railway sector

🌐 Liberia’s parliament has endorsed granting access to the Yekepa–Buchanan railway to the US company Ivanhoe Atlantic. It is Liberia’s logistics backbone, and Ivanhoe Atlantic needs it to ship iron ore from neighbouring Guinea, where its largest iron ore asset is located (750 million tonnes).

📅 This decision crowns 6 years of negotiations accompanied by friction with global steel giant ArcelorMittal, which for a long time effectively held a monopoly over the management of this corridor.

🇺🇸 Washington has carefully nurtured the deal: it was singed on the eve of Trump's meeting with Liberia's president Boakai in July 2025, while a week before the deal was sent to the parliament Liberia’s foreign minister met with Marco Rubio to discuss US investment in the country.

🫂 Special attention from the US enjoyed by Ivanhoe Atlantic is not accidental. Ivanhoe Atlantic is chaired by Peter Pham, who had served Trump’s first administration as the US Special Envoy for the Sahel & Great Lakes Regions of Africa. Besides, Ivanhoe Atlantic itself is selling its projects to Washington as a way to circumvent Chinese control over supply chains.

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You Don’t Want To, But You Have To 🇲🇱

An unpleasant truth: sometimes peace also entails concessions...

🌐 According to Reuters, a Malian court has ordered that 3 metric tonnes of solid, beautiful, shining gold worth about $400 million, confiscated in January 2025 from the Loulo-Gounkoto complex in Western Mali, be returned to the Canadian company Barrick.

👑 Reuters sources also claim that next week Barrick will regain operational control over the entire Loulo-Gounkoto gold complex, where a provisional administration was put in place in June.

⚔️ This points to a real de-escalation of the nearly two-year dispute between Bamako and the Canadian miner, following the settlement reached last month.

🥇 The very fact the confiscated gold was neither sold nor invested — though the temptation must have been great, given the record-high prices — suggests that Bamako never intended to break up with Barrick completely and wanted only to force it to abide by the rules.

🔸 Such an outcome makes it clear that the government, despite its somewhat unfriendly approach, has never sought to overhaul the previous system of partnerships with foreign companies. Since the coup, Mali has neither tried to nationalise active mining projects and run them itself, nor significantly changed the geography of its partners, which remain mainly European and North American companies.

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Gabon Tries Again 🇬🇦

Gabon's government has engaged ore producers in building infrastructure, but risks falling into a half-century-old trap

🌐 Gabon’s president, Brice Oligui Nguema, received a delegation from Australian mining giant Fortescue, which is promoting the Belinga iron ore project in Gabon's North-East. The parties agreed on the construction of a new deep-water port in the Kobe-Kobe area of Gabon by 2030.

🛤 Given that weak infrastructure is the main obstacle to iron exports, including from Belinga, the project is likely conceived precisely as part of Fortescue’s future logistics chain.

🎰 In the 1970s Gabon already bet on infrastructure, but it played out differently than planned. Back then, the country intended to invest its oil revenues in the Trans-Gabon railway to ship manganese from deposits of the French company Ermet.

🛢️In the end, Gabon spent a significant share of its oil revenues, and the railway turned out to be loss-making! The country nearly went bankrupt and continued to incur losses until the railway was privatised in 1999.

With the new project, the authorities should therefore be cautious not to fall into the same trap again: if the Australian investor wants a deep-water port, it should also chip in itself

➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Battle for Nigeria’s Market

Africa’s richest man mounts offensive against state officials over fuel policies

Africa’s richest man and Nigeria’s oil magnate Aliko Dangote usually keeps out of politics and relatively rarely comments on current affairs, with one exception – when it comes to his main brainchild and legacy: his fuel business in Nigeria.

🌐 One such case was yesterday, 14 December, when Dangote accused Farouk Ahmed, the head of the Nigerian agency that oversees the supply and sale of refined fuel, of corruption.

🏷 Aliko Dangote is Africa's wealthiest man and Nigeria’s industrialist and the founder of the Dangote Group, a conglomerate built around cement, sugar, flour, and other manufacturing.

His flagship project is Dangote Petroleum Refinery near Lagos, the largest refinery in Africa and the world's largest single-train refinery with 650,000 barrels/day capacity, undergoing expansion to to 1.4 million bpd.

⏩ In essence, the businessman’s main grievance is that the agency doesn't support his view of domestic oil refining and doesn't fight fiercely enough against cheap fuel imports.

⏩ Dangote’s dispute with officials has been going on since last year, but it sharpened in November when Dangote endorsed president Tinubu's idea of an additional 15% duty on imported fuel, yet on the recommendation of Farouk Ahmed among others, the government postponed its introduction.

🔸 The government is now in a tough position: on the one hand, Dangote is de facto steadily lobbying for a nation-scale monopoly for his refinery, but at the same time Nigeria is Africa’s leading crude producer which shamefully cannot get rid of fuel imports from abroad.

➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Did School Teach Them Nothing? 🇬🇭

Most children who drop out of school in Ghana do so for illegal gold mining or betting

📖 70% of children who drop out of school in Ghana end up in either casinos or gold mines, a new survey suggests. The older the teenager, the more likely they are to abandon boring lessons in favour of blowing money or digging in the ground.

💧 In the end, children lose the already humble sums they have or expose themselves to lethal risks in the mines, polluting rivers and soil with mercury and lead.

🔸 At the same time, it would be wrong to blame gambling and gold alone for the dropouts. The choice in favour of what children see as quick-earning paths is driven by a perceived lack of opportunities for successful development and income within the normal economy – and this can only be addressed by boosting overall standards of life.

➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Resources and Nation-Building 🚩

Somaliland plans to start selling its resources abroad by 2027

🌐 Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi “Irro” says Somaliland expects oil and mineral exploration to start by 2027.

🔸 Trying to attract foreigners to extract natural resources is a traditional pastime in parts of what used to be Somalia: amid constant conflict and devastation, selling resources abroad is the easiest way to make money and gain an advantage over one's opponents.

🤔 Foreigners, however, are not fools either. Since extracting anything onshore is extremely difficult due to elastic borders and political chaos, their favourite choice is offshore oil production – and here the Mogadishu government, together with Turkey, has had particular success.

⏩ Somaliland, for its part, is still content with cooperation with small companies from the UAE and the UK. By launching new extraction projects, Somaliland hopes to secure not only income but also international recognition.

➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

🌐 Weekly News Digest on Africa’s Mineral Industries [ December 8 – December 14 ]

This was a week of gas and American economic inroads.

💡Here are the key highlights:

🇧🇯🇹🇬🇨🇮 Benin, Togo & Côte d'Ivoire

- Benin, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire create a regional gas alliance

🇨🇩 DR Congo

- Congolese miners complain about the requirement to pre-pay cobalt royalties

🇬🇭 Ghana

- Chinese ambassador calls on Ghana to take the problem of illegal gold mining seriously

🇱🇷 Liberia

- US lawmakers accuse the State Department of advancing China’s economic agenda in Liberia
- The parliament endorses granting access to the Yekepa–Buchanan railway to the US company Ivanhoe Atlantic

🇲🇱 Mali

- Mali returns $400 million worth of gold to a Canadian company

🇳🇦 Namibia

- TotalEnergies has taken control of the largest oilfield in Namibia

🇳🇪 Niger

- Niger signed a memorandum with a Russian company on uranium

🇳🇬 Nigeria

- Nigeria reduces fees for oil licenses
- Nigeria issues permits to 28 companies to access and sell associated gas

🇸🇳 Senegal

- Senegal’s minister of energy declared plans to nationalise the Yakaar-Teranga gas field (subsequently refuted)
- Emirati companies get access to key resource sectors of Senegal

🇸🇱 Sierra Leone

- Two teenagers die in a mine collapse

🇿🇦 South Africa

- South Africa's chrome manufacturers get preferential electricity tariffs and avoid closures

🇸🇩 Sudan

- The RSF takes over the Heglig oilfield only to transfer it to the South Sudanese army

🇹🇿 Tanzania

- Tanzania’s president reassured the US ambassador of full commitment to cooperation with American investors

🇿🇲 Zambia

- The US promises Zambia financial support in exchange for reforms and “collaboration in the mining sector”

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe

- The president unexpectedly replaces mines minister with his deputy

#NewsDigest

Devils Below

Giant Evictions, Giant Profits

📄 The UK OECD body has found the complaint by residents of eastern DRC over forced evictions to be well-founded and worthy of examination. The case concerns British company AngloGold Ashanti which, together with the notorious Barrick, owns the Kibali gold mine, one of the largest of its kind in Africa, in the northeast of Congo.

📍 Local residents first became an obstacle to gold mining as early as 2010, a year after the complex was launched. After the initial resettlements in 2010–2015, a cordon of so-called Exclusion Zones was drawn on the map around the complex. Living there was formally prohibited, even though the already existing settlements were also included into the zones.

🚧 At the same time, no significant work was carried out there and the zones were not fenced off – so, people who didn't spend their evenings reading municipal cadastral plans could not even have the idea that living there was forbidden.

⚠️ The turning point was reached in 2021, when the discovery of new deposits prompted the project expansion. "Waste dumps" needed to be created on the sites of the Exclusion Zones, and residents who still remained there began to be pushed out, while their houses were demolished. For locals this came as a surprise – far from everyone knew that their homes was part of some kind of special area.

🏘 The escalation turned into violent protests in the nearby town of Durba. On 22 October 2021 3 people were shot dead and 14 wounded by local security forces — which led to the suspension of resettlements. However, most houses had already been demolished by then, amounting to a total number of around 2,360 removed households.

⚖️ Since then, activists have been trying to achieve justice through local courts and foreign institutions. The initial attempt to go to court in Kinshasa went nowhere – the court ruled that the residents had not made sufficient efforts to resolve the dispute through dialogue with the miners. After that, activists lodged complaints with the non-judicial OECD mechanisms in Canada and the UK.

⏩ Unfortunately, their mandates only allow them to issue recommendations, which is what the Canadian body has already done and what the UK one is likely to do as well, despite having accepted the claims as well-founded.

#CostOfGreed

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Talk Left, Walk Right in South Africa 🇿🇦

For Pretoria, accusing Israel of genocide is not an obstacle to increasing coal supplies

🌐 South Africa, one of the fiercest critics of Israel’s actions in Gaza, has nearly doubled its coal exports to the Jewish state. The opportunity to send extra volumes opened up when Colombia, an active critic of Israel's actions in Gaza itself, banned its coal shipments to Israel.

🔨South Africa and Colombia have much in common. When South Africa was the first to file a complaint with the UN International Court of Justice in December 2023, accusing Israel of failing to prevent genocide in Gaza, Colombia was among the first countries who joined the initiative. At the same time, Colombia was Israel’s main coal supplier, while South Africa was in the top-3.

👋 However, the two countries diverged when it came to real action. In August 2024 Colombia (source of about 41% of Israel’s coal), banned exports and by September 2025 shipments had dropped to zero. South Africa, by contrast, imposed no such ban and its sales instead grew by 87% after Colombia’s shipments stopped.

⏩ Coal is not Israel’s main energy source — it generates some 10% of electricity today, and this share is declining. Even so, it is ironic to see that Colombia has ended up more concerned about the fate of Gazans than South Africa, a country that went through apartheid.

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