Devils Below

Chaos is Time for Investments 📈 💰 In 2026, the government of Zimbabwe unexpectedly found itself with a nice boost to its budget—all thanks to the early implementation of increased royalties on gold mining, which local gold companies fiercely protested against at the end of 2025. 🔸The hike in fees to 10% was introduced in December 2025 through the 2026 national budget, contingent on gold prices exceeding $5,000 per ounce on the global market. At the time, it was worth around $4,000, and consulting firms and analysts predicted it would reach $5,000—if at all—only by the end of 2026. 🔸As usual, Trump turned out to be the culprit—though, in this case, fortunately for Zimbabwe. The international tensions of the recent months—the invasion of Venezuela, threats against Iran, and Greenland’s possible expansion of its military capabilities to three dogsleds—all drove Wall Street’s white-collar folks to stock up on gold in earnest. Now, just as unexpectedly, the government faces the challenge of managing these new inflows into the treasury and diversifying the economy. For instance, it might consider such a megaproject like ensuring the population has access to water. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

Under Royal Patronage 👑 Saudi Arabia Gains New Influence in Africa ⚡️The international confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which has already affected Yemen, is increasingly spreading to Africa. Sudan is next in line—its authorities have been actively seeking to exploit divisions among neighboring Gulf countries over the past few weeks. ⏩One of the main incentives Sudan is using to attract Saudi princes is as usually gold. On January 17, a delegation from Sudan’s state-owned Sudanese Mineral Resources Company reached an agreement with the Saudi Gold Refinery Company to purchase Sudanese gold and potentially grant Saudis licenses to mine minerals. ⏩ In doing so, Sudan is attempting to reduce its dependence on gold exports to the UAE, which supports the anti-government Rapid Support Forces. On the other hand, such an agreement is unlikely to genuinely help the authorities in Khartoum break free from the UAE, since a lion's share of Sudan’s gold is exported illegally—and smugglers are unlikely to care about the official partnerships. To sweeten this ambiguous situation, Sudan simultaneously plans to give Saudi companies priority access to contracts for the reconstruction of railways and ports—a prospect that, in a country ravaged by endless war, appears even more lucrative than the right to purchase evasive gold. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔵The King Is Unhappy with Nigerian Oil Queen🔵 Corruption hearings against Nigeria’s former oil minister open in London 🌐 Yesterday London saw the opening of the bribery trial of Diezani Alison-Madueke, former Nigerian minister of petroleum resources (2010–2015). She is accused of awarding government contracts worth millions to prominent businessmen in exchange for bribes. ⏩ The former first female president of OPEC is alleged to have accepted £100,000 in cash, designer goods from Harrods, and the use of UK properties—benefits said to have come mainly from two Nigerian businessmen, Kolawole Akanni Aluko and Olajide Omokore, linked to the indigenous energy groups Atlantic Energy and SPOG Petrochemicals in exchange for influence over Nigerian oil-and-gas contract awards. ⏩ As usual, London plays several roles at once in this story: the place where corrupt acts were committed, a safe haven for corrupt officials, and the final arbiter weighing the deeds of former Nigerianrulers for their propriety. 💸 If we set aside that the minister is effectively being tried for granting concessions to local companies, albeit corruptly, this reflects wellon the British law enforcement. On the other hand, it reflects badly on Nigerian justice, which remains unable to pursue corrupt officials on its own and is forced to wait 10 years until gentlemen in London decide the fate of a former minister. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔵It’s Not Only Trump Who Wants Minerals🔵 Zambia’s army conducts a military operation to seize gold 🔫 Thoroughly inspired by the spirit of the times and soaring gold prices, Zambia’s army has carried out a full-fledged military operation—seizing the Kikonge gold deposit in the northwest of its own territory. According to reports, the army managed to drive around 1,000 illegal miners off the site. 🏹 Although the operation is being presented simply as the restoration of order and the rule of law, in reality it marks a full-scale paradigm shift for locals. For a long time, Kikonge deliberately had no large companies—only artisanal miners and cooperatives. That, in turn, had already led to an influx of enthusiasts from neighboring countries (Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania) and clashes with police in July 2025. ❗️ While both episodes of security forces involvement were framed as “clearing” the area, the current intervention is tied not only to security concerns but also to a decision to hand the asset over to a new partner. In December, it was announced that the mine would be transferred to the private company Mining Mineral Resources, which operates in southern DRC and is linked to Congolese businessman of Indian origin Rahim Dhrolia. The state-owned ZMMC will also enter Kikonge alongside Dhrolia's company. In this way, the Zambian government has decided to solve two problems at once—shifting the burden of guarding the area against foreigners onto a private partner and securing a larger share of the gold profits. Still, something suggests that once the foreigners are expelled and heavy machinery arrives, even legal local artisanal miners will find themselves shut out of access to the gold. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

Algeria Remembers It Has Neighbors 👥 For long, Algeria found itself in a mysterious situation: formally one of Africa’s oil and gas leaders, yet not particularly eager to expand into neighboring markets—even though those neighbors would clearly not mind gaining new partners beyond the ever-present Chinese. Over a compact 5-day stretch from January 22 to 26, Algeria’s minister for hydrocarbons, Mohamed Arkab, managed to take several important steps to correct this imbalance. 🔸One such step was the Algerian minister’s visit to Chad on January 22–24. As before, concrete agreements focused on education and the exchange of expertise, although future involvement by Algeria’s Sonatrach in Chad’s oil production or refining cannot be ruled out. 🔸Immediately after Chad, Arkab headed to Niger, where discussions moved to more practical matters—the launch of production at Sonatrach’s long-standing Kafra project and issues surrounding theTrans-Saharan gas pipeline. The visit put an end to tensions that had emerged last spring when the Algerian army shot down a Malian drone. Promoting the start of production at the Kafra field clearly required fixing relations between the two countries. While the construction of mega-projects like the Trans-Saharan gas pipeline remains more in the realm of fantasy—sorry, Nigeria—Algeria is clearly intent on exporting its expertise and capital to neighboring regions, where countries such as Niger and Chad increasingly see Algeria as a way out of dependence on China amid mounting difficulties with Western partners. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔴In Casino One Must Know When to Stop🔴 🇨🇦🤝🇨🇳 Canadian company Allied Gold, which owns assets in Mali (the Sadiola mine), Côte d’Ivoire (several mines), and Ethiopia, has decided to sell itself outright to China’s largest mining company, Zijin, for $4 billion. One of the biggest shake-ups in Africa’s mining sector, the deal is the result of a deliberate Canadian strategy to shed risk. 🔸 The sale is about locking in profits amid the continued rise in gold prices. The Canadian company managed to assemble a unique collection of assets—all with large reserves and in operating condition. Some of them, such as the Malian Sadiola deposit, have gone through hell itself—from jihadist attacks (which stopped suspiciously quickly though) to legislative revisions in the state’s favor. 🔸 Now it is time for shareholders to skim the cream: holding on to risky operations no longer makes sense when they can be sold at the highest possible price. In place of Canadian capital will come Chinese capital—more tolerant of risk and able to lean on Beijing’s backing in extreme situations. This major geopolitical shift, paradoxically, is unlikely to have much impact on local communities, since profits, which have long been flowing off to god knows where, will continue to flow out just the same. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔴Norway's Not So Well-Oiled Affair in Congo🔴 Two Norwegians and an oil company are charged with bribing Congo’s president ⚡️Norwegian prosecutors have charged two citizens and an oil company with paying $25 million in bribes to Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso and his family in exchange for offshore drilling rights. Norway is often lauded as one of the world’s least corrupt countries, but its own citizens and companies are apparently not against greasing palms in one of Africa’s most resource-rich nations. The alleged corruption centred on a 2016 oil licence application in which the now accused executives from Hemla Africa Holding AS, a subsidiary of Oslo-listed PetroNor, offered Sassou Nguesso and his relatives a quarter-share of revenues expected from a new oil concession. Afterwards, a company which was controlled by the president's family, was given a 25% stake in Hemla E&P Congo, and received dividends of close to $25 million between 2018 and 2024. This case is not new, as PetroNor already became object of an investigation in 2021, but that one was closed due to the lack of evidence. The presidency too has already been accused of taking bribes from other oil producers and traders, including ENI and Gunvor. 👀 Although these Norwegians have not been able to live up to their high moral standards abroad, at least now there's hope that the Norwegian judicial system will do its job properly - which cannot be said about the judicial system of the Congo, where the dubious affairs of the president and his family areconsistently ignored. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔴High-Profile Schemer Helps to Acquire Assets🔴 French oil major is selling its oil assets to a brand new Nigerian firm 🌐 TotalEnergies has sold its 10% stake in Nigerian onshore and shallow-water oil assets to Vaaris Resources, a brand new local firm founded by a local industry heavyweight. The deal marks another chapter in the exodus of international oil majors from Nigeria’s oil sector. 🔸Vaaris Resources, itself a consortium of local firms, was reportedly assembled by Austin Avuru, a man of impressive credentials: he was a co-founder and former CEO of another indigenous oil producer Seplat and since April 2025 he serves as a non-executive director of the state oil corporation NNPC. 🔸 The assets Vaaris is taking on—18 licenses in the Niger Delta—produced about 16,000 barrels a day for TotalEnergies in 2025. In 2024 the French giant had already tried to sell the same asset to a Mauritius-based company Chappal Energies, which allegedly failed to muster enough funds for the deal leading to its subsequent cancellation by the Nigerian oil regulator in September. One of the masterminds behind the inception of Chappal Energies back in 2020 was also Austin Avuru. Having separated from Chappal in 2022, Avuru built up a record of a local industry heavyweight with links to both political and oil elites — which apparently makes it easier for him to gather funds and secure nods of approval from high-profile officials. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔴A Universal Scapegoat🔴 Illegal gold miners leave the city of Bulawayo without water supply ❗️ Zimbabwe's second largest city mayor says gold mining in the Umzingwane River catchment is devastating the city’s water supply. According to him, the Umzingwane Dam is now only 30% full, while nearby Mshabezi Dam, with minimal mining activity, is overflowing. Bulawayo has been facingwater supply disruptions for several years, regardless of the climate conditions — whether it's a season of droughts or a rainy period just like now. However, in Zimbabwe illegal gold mining has become not only a major problem, but also a solution for those in the elite, who want to distract people's attention from the real failures of governance. Zimbabwe has banned riverbed mining, but in the popular view enforcement is a joke — so, why not blame anything on illegal miners? While illegal mining is a problem, another and seemingly more sound explanation attributes the persistent water supply challenges to the government's inability to match Bulawayo's population growth by building new supply infrastructure. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔴Sweet Deal: Nigeria’s Another Corporate Handout?🔴 Abuja rolls out the red carpet for Shell’s project, while the rest of Nigeria watches the oil money flow elsewhere 📈 Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has approved “targeted incentives” to speed up Shell’s Bonga South West offshore oil project, aiming for a final investment decision by mid-2027. The government claims this will boost production to 150,000 barrels a day and bring jobs and revenue, but more importantly this will bring in a nice image right on the eve of the 2027 presidential elections. 🔸Nigeria’s oil industry has been drowning in problems for years: corruption, aging infrastructure and environmental pollution that forced many international companies out of onshore oil. Now the government is handing out incentives to the same companies, but this time offshore. “This will be one of the biggest, I would say, energy projects in the world,” Shell's CEO said. 🔸According to the government, these incentives are “conditional” and “targeted,” however, no details have been made public yet. In exchange for the tax breaks Shell reportedly promised to announce somewhere in the mid-2027 its final investment decision on the project, which in turn could mean around $20 billion in investments somewhere in the too-distant future. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔴Window Dressing on the Eve of Oil Drilling🔴 🌐 Nigeria’s Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP)is boastingthat it starts training 100 Ogoni youths in mechatronics, preparing them for the “opportunities” of oil extraction return to Nigeria’s Ogoniland. ❗️This is the same regionwhere oil spills have poisoned land and water for decades, and HYPREP is the body that was supposed to do the cleanup after oil companies failed to do it. ⏩ President Tinubu’s government began to push to restart oil production in Ogoniland in 2024, while HYPREP has mostly failed to keep its word and ruined a 2011 rehabilitation plan, proposed by the UN. Now it is pretending that the work has been successfully accomplished and Ogoniland can move towards new well drilling. With the scent of fresh oil drilling in the air, the shiny new skills program serves as a way to hide the fact of the state’s inability to remediate the environmental disaster originating from the previous era of oil extraction. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔴We Do With Assets Anything We Like🔴 DRC sends the United States a list of assets for investor review Rumors circulating since last week that the Congolese government intended to submit to a joint DRC–US commission a list of projects open to American investors have proven true: the day before yesterday it became known that such a list had already been handed over. Reuters, citing sources, reports that it includes: ⚪️Kisenge licenses for the extraction of manganese, gold, and cassiterite ⚪️Gécamines projects for copper and cobalt mining at Mutoshi, as well as a germanium processing facility ⚪️ four Sokimo gold licenses and Cominiere lithium licenses ⚪️Sakima assets for coltan, gold, and tungsten mining Although all the entities mentioned in the original report are state-owned, at least two of them — Gécamines and Cominiere — have this year been implicated in the forcible takeover of private assets. ⏩Gécamines only recently offered to buy the copper-cobalt Mutoshi mine from its current owner, Chemaf, at a knockdown price—after Gécamines itself blocked its sale to a Chinese investor in March 2025. It appears that from that moment on, the asset was being kept in reserve for the Americans. ⏩Cominiere, for its part, had been doing the opposite: back in 2023 it tried to wrest the Manono lithium deposit from Australia’s AVZ Minerals in order to hand it over to the Chinese company Zijin. While the government and state corporations shuffle their assets however they please in pursuit of higher rents and political gains, it is not only the owners of some of these assets who suffer. There are also ordinary workers at these enterprises and contractors, left without pay and without jobs while Kinshasa clumsily plays geopolitical chess. ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow