🤔 Senegal’s Vicious Oil Circulation
🛢 In the twisted world of supply chains no one would be surprised to learn that Senegal, having its own large crude oil deposits, imports refined fuel products from abroad. After all, there is only one modest refinery.
However, the Senegalese love oil SO MUCH that they also import crude oil fromNigeria .
It turns out, not only the Senegalese unique refinery produces very humble output (30,000 barrels/day), but it also fails to process local sorts of oil. So they foundNigeria’s crude more suitable.
💵 As a result, Senegal is deprived of foreign currency twice. I wouldn’t even dare to imagine what a horror is unfolding on the pages of their balance of payments.
However, despair thou shalt not. There is also a hope for deliverance for Senegal’s oil sector.
Devils Below
However, the Senegalese love oil SO MUCH that they also import crude oil from
It turns out, not only the Senegalese unique refinery produces very humble output (30,000 barrels/day), but it also fails to process local sorts of oil. So they found
However, despair thou shalt not. There is also a hope for deliverance for Senegal’s oil sector.
Devils Below
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In our observation of African mining developments we cannot leave unattended today’s trading
Once upon a time
While the consensus now is further consistent growth, for our cause there are 2 significant trends to observe:
After all, the paradox of plenty was coined for a reason.
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🇨🇩 DRC Reveals Underpayments
🌏 Mining companies operating in the DRC underreported $16.8 billion in revenue in 2018-2025, leading to $50.4 million in lost contributions to local community development funds.
wrote J.Conrad in "Heart of Darkness" in 1899
Very meaningful 👐, but what he probably didn't mean is that in 2025 mining management's minds would be occupied with number juggling in an attempt to save a needy multibillion-dollar corporation another dozen million dollars on local development.
The video shows a recent BBC capture of work conditions at a coltan mine in the Eastern DRC.
Devils Below
"The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future"
wrote J.Conrad in "Heart of Darkness" in 1899
Very meaningful 👐, but what he probably didn't mean is that in 2025 mining management's minds would be occupied with number juggling in an attempt to save a needy multibillion-dollar corporation another dozen million dollars on local development.
The video shows a recent BBC capture of work conditions at a coltan mine in the Eastern DRC.
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🇨🇩 DRC Reveals Underpayments 🌏 Mining companies operating in the DRC underreported $16.8 billion in revenue in 2018-2025, leading to $50.4 million in lost contributions to local community development funds. "The mind of man is capable of anything - because…
In the world where wild capitalism is curbed by social and governmental restraints, investing in the life around mine can allow to buy cheaper services of the locals (since they do not run away from a company's mines) and attract more non-local specialists (since there will be more to their leisure time than watching grass grow) - to say nothing of gaining popular support for certain business-favourable policies.
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🇿🇼 From Ore to More: Zimbabwe Urges Internal Processing
🌏 Harare called for investments in internal mineral processing, pairing a crackdown on graft with tighter oversight of miners.
said Vice President Chiwengo
Zimbabwe remains one of Africa’s most consistent and successful champions of domestic processing.
Having imposed restrictions on raw lithium exports in 2022, Harare went on to ban as well the export of lithium concentrates (in force from 2027).
📈 Since the enactment of the first restrictions, 5 brand new facilities were constructed in Zimbabwe, which process lithium ore into concentrates.
Devils Below
“To the processors and off takers, the era of raw mineral exports must give way to beneficiation and value addition”,
said Vice President Chiwengo
Zimbabwe remains one of Africa’s most consistent and successful champions of domestic processing.
Having imposed restrictions on raw lithium exports in 2022, Harare went on to ban as well the export of lithium concentrates (in force from 2027).
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🇨🇩 Gold Fever Reaches the DRC
🌏 The DRC's Central Bank has announced its plan to build up gold reserves. Despite producing over 40 tons of gold annually, the DRC has historically maintained virtually no official gold reserves.
According to the Central Bank's recently appointed Head,
📍 Supposedly, to this end the Central Bank is planning to acquire the gold produced loclly, a strategy already in place in Burkina Faso, Nigeria and South Africa.
However, the DRC does not have its own gold refineries (see the pic), which means that the Central Bank will have to purify purchased gold at its own expense somewhere abroad.
👁 Otherwise, in case of an economic emergency, the Central Bank may find itself buried under a mountain of 70% doré gold no one wants to buy.
Devils Below
According to the Central Bank's recently appointed Head,
"that will not only reinforce the franc but also permit the franc to be traded internationally because it will be backed by reserves in gold, above and beyond dollar reserves."
However, the DRC does not have its own gold refineries (see the pic), which means that the Central Bank will have to purify purchased gold at its own expense somewhere abroad.
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When Mansa Musa passed through Cairo in 1324, he spent and gifted so much gold that local prices plunged for years. Africa still glitters, but, as we showed in our recent material of the continent's top gold miners, most industrial output is booked by foreign corporations.
Behold the top 10 African-founded gold producers:
With more countries pushing local refining there’s a real opening for African businesses to scale from pits to processing — and ensure that the next gold story isn’t just about who digs, but who
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🇧🇼 Botswana: 24% Home or Don’t Come
🌏 Botswana has started enforcing a 24% local ownership rule for new mining concessions. If the state chooses not to buy the stake itself, companies must sell 24% to local investors or firms.
if I'm not misspelling
Botswana is not the first to introduce an obligatory local share for new enterprises:
👉 South Africa: 30% under the Mining Charter for new mining rights
👉 Zimbabwe: 51% in strategic minerals
👉 Ghana: 10% government free carry in mineral rights.
👉 Tanzania: 16% government free carry
👉 Namibia: 5–20% progressive by development stage.
This further strenghens the trend towards local value creation and broader taxation of mining projects in the era of ever-rising commodity prices.
By the way, this genuinely global trend also shows why accusing the some governments (e.g. Mali, Niger etc) of resource nationalism is nothing more than partisanship or inability to see the whole picture.
Devils Below
"Anyone who has two shirts should share at least 24% with the one who has none",Luke 3:11,
Botswana is not the first to introduce an obligatory local share for new enterprises:
This further strenghens the trend towards local value creation and broader taxation of mining projects in the era of ever-rising commodity prices.
By the way, this genuinely global trend also shows why accusing the some governments (e.g. Mali, Niger etc) of resource nationalism is nothing more than partisanship or inability to see the whole picture.
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🇲🇱 Mali’s Loulo Prepares to Blast Again
🌏 Mali’s provisional administration will restart blasting at Loulo–Gounkoto mine on October 15, four months after Bamako took control of the mining complex from Barrick amid a dispute over the new Mining code.
📉 Due to the prolonged dispute engendered by Barrick's unwillingness to comply with the new Mining code of 2023, Mali’s industrial gold output has fallen 32% year on year.
📑 This month the World Bank's arbitration court is expected to rule on the legitimacy of the provisional administration establishment. The latest developments look like a sign of Mali's resolve to go on running Loulo-Gounkoto without his majesty Barrick's highest consent.
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🇲🇱🇺🇸 Moral Outrage at 9, Due Diligence at 10
A US mining company Flagship Gold Corp has signed an agreement with Malian government marking the first American investment in Mali's gold mining under the revised 2023 Mining code (which grants the state up to 30 percent ownership in new projects and eliminates some tax exemptions).
Confucius, 5th century BCE
🤝 Despite accusations of “resource nationalism,” Bamako has already successfully renegotiated the terms of operating with a series of companies: Allied Gold, B2Gold, Resolute Mining, Ganfeng (among others). The only big outlier here remains Barrick.
The object of the latest agreement is Morila gold mine, a world-class open-pit in the country's South-East that was forfeited in June, 2025 after Australian Firefinch abandoned it in 2022. It is believed the mine contains approximately 2.5 million oz in remaining reserves.
Devils Below
A US mining company Flagship Gold Corp has signed an agreement with Malian government marking the first American investment in Mali's gold mining under the revised 2023 Mining code (which grants the state up to 30 percent ownership in new projects and eliminates some tax exemptions).
Principles are one thing, $4,000 an ounce is another.
Confucius, 5th century BCE
The object of the latest agreement is Morila gold mine, a world-class open-pit in the country's South-East that was forfeited in June, 2025 after Australian Firefinch abandoned it in 2022. It is believed the mine contains approximately 2.5 million oz in remaining reserves.
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🌍 Rare Earth, Real Stakes: What's In A Name of REE? [1/2]
🌏 On Thursday (October 9) China imposed additional restrictions on the exports of rare earth elements (REEs) which provoked a new iteration of tariff hysteria on the part of the US. Amid these developments we've decided to speak about what's the situation with REEs in Africa.
🤓 As the reader may already know, Africa is rich in Cobalt, Manganese, Grahite, Lithium - so, these are not rare earths. The REAL REEs are Europium, Holmium and 15 more "-um" elements no one had ever heard of, since their formation in the Mesozoic and up to two or three years ago.
🎛 The significance of REEs in our high-tech era has also become a household name: certainly, without them Chinese batteries would not battery, and American F-35 airfighters would not airfight. If this explanation seems insufficient, one may merely look and the degree of tensions that arise any time somebody (mostly the PRC) tries to limit exports of REEs.
As regards Africa, the largest known deposits of this flesh and blood of high-tech are located in Tanzania, Angola and Kenya (see one of the pics).
❗️ Surprisingly, the only known REEs producers are completely different: they are Madagascar and Nigeria, which is now the leading REEs exporter in Africa.
‼️ What's even more surprising, before 2024 nobody had even had an idea of Nigeria's potential leadership in the sphere of REEs. And then the country started exporting some 7,000 tons of REEs oxydes literally out of the blue. 👇
The question of who, where and how extracts and produces Nigerian REEs still remains vague.
Next week we are going to publish one of our most interesting articles, which will be devoted to this issue.
Devils Below
🤓 As the reader may already know, Africa is rich in Cobalt, Manganese, Grahite, Lithium
As regards Africa, the largest known deposits of this flesh and blood of high-tech are located in Tanzania, Angola and Kenya (see one of the pics).
The question of who, where and how extracts and produces Nigerian REEs still remains vague.
Next week we are going to publish one of our most interesting articles, which will be devoted to this issue.
Devils Below
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🇨🇩 Another Week, Another Rule: The DRC's Cobalt Playbook Complimented Again
🌏 The DRC’s mining regulator said today it will revoke cobalt export quotas from any company that fails to ship its full allocation, breaches tax or environmental rules, or transfers quotas to third parties.
Three days ago it was announced that the allocations of quotas under the new system will be based on companies' production and shipment data for the previous three years. And two days earlier we learned that miners breaching the system would be banned permanently.
👁 The quotas are to come in force starting from October 16. In its current form, the system allows the government to regulate cobalt production almost manually.
Devils Below
Three days ago it was announced that the allocations of quotas under the new system will be based on companies' production and shipment data for the previous three years. And two days earlier we learned that miners breaching the system would be banned permanently.
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🇿🇼 Tensions Rise In Zimbabwe Over Chinese Nationals
🌏 Police in Mutoko, Zimbabwe are investigating after a Chinese national allegedly shot and killed a Zimbabwean citizen at a gold mine on October 9, 2025.
🇨🇳 China is known for its thousand-year history, full of traditions and rituals.
Accordingly, in Zimbabwe Chinese mining staff is apparently building its own tradition of killing local personnel, which dates back to at least 2020, when a mine owner also shot two Zimbabwean workers.
👉 In a statement issued by the company (see the pic) which runs the gold mine, the victim was called a member of a criminal group that was planning to rob the site, accidentally shot by an armed on-duty engineer who fired into the air.
👉 A more popular version says that the victim was working at the same mine and was killed after asking the Chinese for salary.
Though both sound unconvincing, the history with a Chinese battle engineer shoting into the air and killing a person looks fairly more suspicious.
(The video shows the members of the local community surrounding a group of Chinese nationals caught not far from the corpse).
Devils Below
🇨🇳 China is known for its thousand-year history, full of traditions and rituals.
Accordingly, in Zimbabwe Chinese mining staff is apparently building its own tradition of killing local personnel, which dates back to at least 2020, when a mine owner also shot two Zimbabwean workers.
Though both sound unconvincing, the history with a Chinese battle engineer shoting into the air and killing a person looks fairly more suspicious.
(The video shows the members of the local community surrounding a group of Chinese nationals caught not far from the corpse).
Devils Below
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🇬🇭 Ghana’s Ecocide Push
🌏 A coalition of 20+ Ghanaian civil society groups has urged the country's President to back an ecocide law to tackle illegal gold mining crisis, citing evidence of mercury, arsenic and lead contamination across rivers, soils and food chains.
Revelations 11:18
❓ In July 2025, environment ministers at African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (Nairobi) placed ecocide among Africa's strategic environmental priorities for 2025 to 2027, marking the first time a UN forum has explicitly recognised it as a continental concern.
The DRC and some other countries intend to amend the ICC's Rome Statute to include ecocide.
(The video shows poisoned water being processed for treatment at a plant in Ghana's Central Region)
Devils Below
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged ... and thou shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Revelations 11:18
The DRC and some other countries intend to amend the ICC's Rome Statute to include ecocide.
(The video shows poisoned water being processed for treatment at a plant in Ghana's Central Region)
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🇨🇩 Roads, Loads, and Nodes: DRC's Cobalt Family Affair
A major investigation by Africa Intelligence has sent political shockwaves through the DRC. The recent report reveals what it calls
For thosewho doesn't have €2,000 for subscription who doesn't have time to read the full text, here are the main claims of the report:
👉 The story began unfolding when a delegation from Kinshasa composed of senior officers and government inspectors was denied access to one of the mining sites owned by Kazakh Eurasian Resource Group in Lualaba Province earlier this year.
👁 The mine, officially suspended since 2023, was found to be operational under the protection of armed units from the presidential Republican Guard.
📑 The internal ERG report identified networks of Lebanese and Chinese operators deeply embedded in the illegal trade in relation to ERG's suspended assets.
🤝 President Tshisekedi’s brothers, Christian Tshisekedi and Thierry Tshisekedi have allegedly tried to act as mediators between illegal mining cartels and ERG.
Tshisekedi made a visit on September 10 to Kazakhstan to engage directly with President Tokayev and ERG leadership, possibly trying to cover up the affair that could tarnish the reformist self-positioning of his government.
Devils Below
A major investigation by Africa Intelligence has sent political shockwaves through the DRC. The recent report reveals what it calls
the dangerous connections of the Tshisekedi clan with the looting cartels.
For those
Tshisekedi made a visit on September 10 to Kazakhstan to engage directly with President Tokayev and ERG leadership, possibly trying to cover up the affair that could tarnish the reformist self-positioning of his government.
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🇲🇱 Is Mali So Scary?
🌏 On October 10 another investor got lured by the gold-promising soil of Southern Mali. Australian Toubani Resources with the funds borrowed from Singaporean Eagle Eye Asset Holdings decided to invest some $258 million in Mali's Kobada gold mine.
💵 In what is projected to become one of Africa's major gold mines, Malian government will get a 10% share free of charge thanks to the new Mining Code of 2023.
The output of Kobada is expected to reach 162,000 oz/year, which is close to Allied Gold's Sadiola complex.
❗️ Mali is often criticized for what is called "resource nationalism" and alledged "pivoting from Western investors to courting Russian interests". However, while more and more investors enter Malian gold sectore, there is still not a single Russian large-scale miner in the country as well as no other major deprived investor except for Barrick.
Devils Below
The output of Kobada is expected to reach 162,000 oz/year, which is close to Allied Gold's Sadiola complex.
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🇨🇩 In the DRC China Buys Entire Companies
Chinese miners already have within their grasp some 70% of the DRC's cobalt production. Today, the scarlet banner of the PRC is rising above the Congolese gold sector.
🌏 China’s Chengtun Mining Group is set to buy Canadian Loncor Gold for about $261 million — handing its Adumbi project in northeastern DRC to the Chinese miner. If it closes, the deal plants a Chinese flag near the country’s only large-scale producer of today - Kibali, which accounts for some 90% of the gold production in the DRC and which is owned evenly by Barrick and AngloGold Ashanti.
💵 While the DRC is trying to harness the China-dominated cobalt sector and bring to life the US-sponsored peace framework along with Trump's another mineral deal, Beijing has a strong argument in favour of China's preserving (and even expanding) presence in the DRC - its seemingly endless money and rediness to invest in risky assets.
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Chinese miners already have within their grasp some 70% of the DRC's cobalt production. Today, the scarlet banner of the PRC is rising above the Congolese gold sector.
It is not normal that those with whom the country has signed exploitation contracts are getting richer while our people remain poor…said Congolese president Tshisekedi in 2021.
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🇬🇭 Ghana's Blockchain Madness
🌏 On Monday Ghana's Gold Board Chief Sammy Gyamfi announced the upcoming launch of blockchain-powered "track-and-trace" system supposed to put on and to illegal gold mining (also known in Ghana as "galamsey"). The suggested scheme seems simple: you mine gold - you get a special blockchain tracker for every single gramm - the Gold Board can make sure no refinery gets gold from those who mine illegally.
❓ Our world, however, is full of unanswered questions and mysteries. Only 10% of the ocean has been explored, we don't know how Egyptians built their pyramids or who killed Kennedy - CIA or FBI - as well as how blockchain can actually help fight "galamsey".
👁 Illegal gold mining is called illegal for its ability to bypass official procedures. The Gold Board has already established a monopoly to by gold from small-scale mining, which means no factory or refinery can on their own buy the production of artisanal miners.
Those who continue doing so will just make sure gold gets its crypto-lebel somewhere in the middle of production chain. Those who smuggle gold across the border to the UAE and India will continue smuggling it to the UAE and India.
🎛 Unfortunately, blockchain cannot not cure corruption and establish the control of a state over its own borders, nor can AI. People still have to make some real efforts and Ghana's government had better not neglect this.
Devils Below
Those who continue doing so will just make sure gold gets its crypto-lebel somewhere in the middle of production chain. Those who smuggle gold across the border to the UAE and India will continue smuggling it to the UAE and India.
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🇨🇲 Old Biya's Oil Legacy
Cameroon's then Prime Minister Paul Biya straightened his tie as he went to office - probably he did not even suspect that on this day an event occurred that would forever change the future of his country.
It was a rainy day of November, 1977 and it was the day when Cameroon pumped out its first gallon of oil for sale.
As the 92-year-old President is going to leave his throne one way or another, it's high time to assess what his presidency has given to Cameroon, in our case through the prism of its mineral wealth.
Biya kicked off his 43-year long séjour in office when French company Elf Aquitaine had already become a monopolist developer of Cameroon's off-shore oil deposits, controlling nearly 3/4 of the national oil output at some point.
It took next to nothing for the new president and corporates to find a common ground and a common interest.
recollected Alfred Sirven, ex-manager of Elf Aquitaine in 2009
The french company supposedly supported Biya in all his elections in 1982 - 2000. In return, the president didn't bother himself to establish any resemblance of financial discipline in oil. For the first time oil revenues appeared on the state's budget sheets in 1989, a dozen years after oil started generate income for Elf.
As a result, in 1977-2007 Cameroon's public budget lostat least $7 BILLION , according to an IMF study of 2012.
Elf passed away in 2000, but its legacy lived on. With corrpution soaking into all layers of the state bureacracy, it's no surprise that not only Biya himself, but also his national oil refinery SONARA and national oil company SNH got also tainted by bribery: in 2012-2015 Anglo-Swiss Glencore was caught disbursing some $11 million in exchange for favourable treatment and non-market prices for crude oil.
The most unpleasant part of this story is that a country where oil accounts for nearly 40% of exports (50-60% if natural gas is counted), still doesn't posess its any refining capacity of its, except for the state-owned SONARA refinery suspended 7 years ago, which makes it dependent not only on crude oil exports, but also on petroleum imports.
Meanwhile, with Biya's 43 anniversary in power looming ahead on November 6, 2025, his country's GDP per capita, stands at the same level that saw his ascension to power in 1982.
Devils Below
Cameroon's then Prime Minister Paul Biya straightened his tie as he went to office - probably he did not even suspect that on this day an event occurred that would forever change the future of his country.
It was a rainy day of November, 1977 and it was the day when Cameroon pumped out its first gallon of oil for sale.
As the 92-year-old President is going to leave his throne one way or another, it's high time to assess what his presidency has given to Cameroon, in our case through the prism of its mineral wealth.
Biya kicked off his 43-year long séjour in office when French company Elf Aquitaine had already become a monopolist developer of Cameroon's off-shore oil deposits, controlling nearly 3/4 of the national oil output at some point.
It took next to nothing for the new president and corporates to find a common ground and a common interest.
One day, I was received at the Cameroonian presidency by President Paul Biya. He needed 45 million for his campaign ... They need cash and they need this cash to escape from their Finance Minister.
recollected Alfred Sirven, ex-manager of Elf Aquitaine in 2009
The french company supposedly supported Biya in all his elections in 1982 - 2000. In return, the president didn't bother himself to establish any resemblance of financial discipline in oil. For the first time oil revenues appeared on the state's budget sheets in 1989, a dozen years after oil started generate income for Elf.
As a result, in 1977-2007 Cameroon's public budget lost
Those who steal from one person spend their lives in shackles and chains - those who steal from all people, in purple and gold.
Elf passed away in 2000, but its legacy lived on. With corrpution soaking into all layers of the state bureacracy, it's no surprise that not only Biya himself, but also his national oil refinery SONARA and national oil company SNH got also tainted by bribery: in 2012-2015 Anglo-Swiss Glencore was caught disbursing some $11 million in exchange for favourable treatment and non-market prices for crude oil.
The most unpleasant part of this story is that a country where oil accounts for nearly 40% of exports (50-60% if natural gas is counted), still doesn't posess its any refining capacity of its, except for the state-owned SONARA refinery suspended 7 years ago, which makes it dependent not only on crude oil exports, but also on petroleum imports.
Meanwhile, with Biya's 43 anniversary in power looming ahead on November 6, 2025, his country's GDP per capita, stands at the same level that saw his ascension to power in 1982.
Devils Below
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