Devils Below

📺The Oil Apocalypse Is Postponed 📺 Ghana Hopes to Keep Its Oil Fields Viable Until 2040 🌐 Against the backdrop of a looming production crisis, Ghana is extending the licenses of its two operating oil projects — the Jubilee and TEN fields — by several years. At the same time, the state-owned GNPC is expected to receive an additional 10% stake in both assets. ❗️ The licenses for Jubilee and TEN were due to expire in 2034–2036, roughly the same time their oil is expected to be depleted. With no new discoveries so far, this would have meant a premature death of Ghana’s oil sector, which was born in 2010 with the launch of Jubilee. ⏩ Instead, the lifespan of both projects is now expected to be extended to 2040 through the drilling of new wells. In parallel, in 2036 GNPC will increase its stake in both projects by 10%, i.e. to 17%. ⏩ The government is actively trying to turn oil production from a temporary venture into a fully-fledged sector of the Ghanaian economy, pursuing onshore exploration while also courting foreign partners for further exploration efforts. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

📺Revolving Doors in Sahara 📺 Niger Replaces Its Oil Minister Yet Again 🌐 A year after the replacement of the head of the ministry most critical to the country’s economy, Niger has once again handed the post to a new figure. The new oil minister is Hamadou Tinni, who replaces Sahabi Oumarou — himself appointed in August 2024. ⏩ As is customary in Niamey, the reasons behind the constant reshuffling at this key ministry are not disclosed. Niger’s oil sector has shown explosivegrowth in recent years, and aside from recurring disputes with the Chinese company CNPC and occasional pipeline sabotage by insurgents, there are few signs of any serious crisis. ⏩ Given that the new minister is widely described as an accounting specialist, it is reasonable to assume that the logic behind the reshuffle is to fine-tune a system capable of capturing a larger share of budget revenues from oil exports, whose volume has more than tripled since 2023. 🔖 For Niger, the management of oil remains a matter of utmost importance, as crude exports via Benin are the country’s main source of foreign currency and the financial backbone of the government. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

📺Let’s Pretend This Was the Plan All Along 📺 After Protests, Kinshasa Backs Down to Its Own Population ✔️The DRC governmenthas once again allowed processing units to accept copper and cobalt from artisanal miners, reversing the ban imposed on December 19 last year. Authorities claim that a week of work by a special commission created on December 26 was enough to inspect the sector and resume purchases of artisanal cobalt. “At the end of the commission’s work (established on December 26) … the commission found violations of the Mining Code and Mining Regulations by all processing entities,” the government said. 🔥 Despite having identified violations on the part of every company processing artisanal ore, the government nevertheless decided to restore people’s ability to earn a living. In December, the ban triggered mass unrest among miners in Lualaba province. Notably, the renewed authorization will apply only to Lualaba. ✉️ The government says that following the reopening it will send letters to companies outlining the shortcomings they are expected to correct. In this way, public anger over the tightening of controls in the mining sector is being shifted from Kinshasa onto companies themselves. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

📺 Uganda and Tanzania Thumb Their Noses at Eco-Activists 📺 Uganda is going to see first oil exports by October 🇺🇬 Uganda’s Museveni is expecting a real celebration in October 2026, as the country is finally planning to launch its first-ever oil exports via the EACOP pipeline. The project has faced resistance from environmental activists, who have even coalesced into the StopEACOP movement. 💰 The main beneficiaries are the oil producers — France’s TotalEnergies and China’s CNOOC — which have been unable to sell Uganda’s oil due to the lack of access to seaports. The pipeline will stretch roughly 1,500 km from Lake Albert to the terminals of Port Tanga in Tanzania. ⚠️ The project has drawn criticism over concerns that construction of the pipeline would require the resettlement of local communities and could lead to pollution in the event of oil spills. 🎉 If the pipeline does come online, it will be a genuine triumph for President Museveni, who has ruled the country for decades. Uganda discovered first oil back in the mid-2000s, but exports are yet to come. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

📺Clearing Out the Old Legacy 📺 Nigeria Purges the Entire Leadership of Its Oil Sector 🌐 Following the replacement of the CEOs of the two key oil and fuelregulators, NUPRC and NMDPRA, Nigeria’s Tinubuhas reshuffled no fewer than 21 members of the governing boards of these bodies. The CEO changes took place in mid-December, after one of them came under public criticism from oil magnate Aliko Dangote. 🚮 The growing scale of the shake-up increasingly resembles an effort to replacethe appointees of former president Buhari, under whom the two regulators were originally created. Of the 21 new board members, only 3 had previously held these positions, and just 2 were appointed back under the former president. 👑 At the same time, since Tinubu’s inauguration there had been almost no changes to the boards’ leadership, meaning their composition was effectively inherited from his predecessor. ⏩ The president appears to be seeking tighter control over Nigeria’s most critical sector, aiming to ensure unquestioning compliance with his directives while minimizing the risk of internal sabotage — a consideration that is particularly salient in the run-up to the 2027 elections. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

This Little Maneuver’s Gonna Cost Us 51 Years [Megaprojects] 🌍 We have already written about the idea of the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, meant to sell Nigerian gas to Europe via Algeria. One of its main problems was that between the two ends of the pipeline there is the unstable zone of northern Nigeria, Niger, and southern Algeria. So, an alternative emerged — a detour along Africa’s Atlantic coast, also known as the Nigeria–Morocco Gas Pipeline. 🇲🇦 The idea of laying the pipeline in such an elegant crescent was proposed by the King of Morocco back in 2016. Compared with the previous project, it has 3 key new features: 🔸The pipeline is planned to run along the ocean floor rather than over land; 🔸 The project is aimed at supplying a larger number of African countries; 🔸 Its implementation has actually progressed beyond mere declarations (i.e. nearing the phase of construction). 🐠 It's clear that the project’s relative success stems precisely from a broader African customer base and a lower risks. Not only does it skirt the most dangerous regions, but it also lies on the seabed — so unless fish start converting to radical Islam, politicians have little to worry about. 🔽 Still, the project — which could become the longest offshore gas pipeline in the world — faces the same question as its onshore counterpart: what about the gas in Nigeria itself? Given that the timeline stretches into the 2040s, one has to ask whether Nigeria will be able to offer enough gas by then. #Megaprojects ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

📺Paper War in Sudan 📺 📉Sudan’s central bank and the state-owned Sudanese Mineral Resources Company (SMRC) have set up a joint commission to curb illegalgold exports. Beyond the massive gold outflows from the territories controlled by the RSF, Khartoum is also facing chaos in the gold sector in its own regions. ▶️ In September, Sudan’s central bank attempted to establish a monopoly over gold transactions by banning private exports. The bank’s suspicion was that companies were selling gold abroad at unnaturally low prices. Some 53 tonnes of gold were officially produced in Khartoum's Sudan in January-September, worth several billion dollars — yet official exports reached only $909 million. ▶️ The monopoly decision, however, was reversed in less than 2 months after producers pushed back. The bank then required companies to measure export batches domestically, so as to prevent price recalculation abroad. ▶️ The joint commission is clearly meant to implement such measures on site. While the central bank has the initiative, it's SMRC that actually has the personnel and resources to realise bank's whims, being the main authority overseeing Sudan's gold sector. ↗️ With gold leaking out of Sudan like water through a sieve, the authorities’ legalistic efforts do look awkward and comical. But for people in Khartoum there is little to laugh about — gold may soon become the main source of revenue for the government at war. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

📺Jihadists Want Neither Gold nor Hostages 📺 🌐 On Sunday, JNIM militants attacked a gold mine in southeastern Mali, set equipment on fire, and took 7 workers hostage — only to release them the following evening. Since October last year, the mine has formally belonged to Flagship Gold, which became the first US firm to come for Malian gold after new mining laws were effected in 2023. The mine in question is the Morila gold mine, a world-class open pit that was nationalized in June 2025 after an Australian company abandoned it in 2022. 🪖 Given that no announcements have followed since October about the American company actually coming to the site the site, it is reasonable to assume that the kidnapped workers were Malian employees of the state-owned company SOREM, which had been running the mine after nationalization. ❓ Of course, there is an elephant in the room here: since when does JNIM take hostages for just one day? If the Americans are yet to arrive, one can assume that government representatives showed wonders of persuasionor gave the militants everything they asked for to avoid a scandal. Or perhaps the jihadists simply changed their minds. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

📺Congolese Clergy Dislikes USA 📺 🔥 The so-called strategic partnership between the DRCo and the US has sparked sharp outrage from the local Catholic Church. On Christmas Day, Archbishop of Lubumbashi and Head of the powerful bishops’ conference CENCO Fulgence Muteba publicly decried the agreement as a sell-off of national resources and of the future of young Congolese. 🇺🇸 The Strategic"Partnership" in question links the extraction of copper, cobalt, lithium, and other minerals in Congo to US-backed projects, granting American investors a right of first refusal. It also obliges the DRC to create a stockpile of critical minerals for the US at the expense of the Congolese state-run companies. 🏹 The government chose to counterattack and criticized the bishops for their harsh rhetoric toward Washington, while claiming they speak too little about Rwanda-backed violence and the illegal export of minerals from the east of the country. It remains very unclear how monks, in Kinshasa’s view, are supposed to influence the war in the east — a war the government itself keeps messing up. ↗️ Such criticism on the part of the Archbishop of Lubumbashi, a city at the heart of the Congolese mining industry, can further alienate citizens from Kinshasa's handling of the country's resources and its geopolitical decisions. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

📺Africa's Own UAE 📺 Equatorial Guinea moves its capital to a brand new city built on oil revenues 🛫 The government of Equatorial Guinea is relocating from the island capital Malabo to a new city deep in the eastern mainland of the country. The construction of the new capital, Ciudad de la Paz, situated closer to the majority of the population (around 80% live on the mainland), began in 2012. ▶️ Building an entire new city in the middle of the jungle was made possible by oil revenues. Oil has turned Equatorial Guinea, with a population of roughly 1.6 million, into one of Africa’s wealthiest countries, providing around 80% of the state budget. ▶️ Naturally, the construction did not come without corruption. Earlier this year, investigative journalists reported kickbacks of about $90 million from the Portuguese construction firm Zagope to the forestry company Somagui, allegedly owned by the son of President Teodoro Obiang. ↗️ It's clear which country with a similarly small population, oil wealth, and megaprojects Guinea’s elites took as their model. True, infrastructure and urbanization could help EG become a regional trade and business hub. But beyond construction, this also requires investment in education, healthcare, and social security — in short, such one weird trick as starting to share oil revenues with the entire population, not only with relatives. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

📺 West Africa's Advanced Exploration Methods 📺 A way to discover oil fields through prophecy is being tried out in Ghana 🌐 A Ghanaian prophet and leader of his own religious movement has predicted the discovery of major onshore oil deposits in Ghana. Whether this was revealed to him by a crystal ball or by someone-we-all-know appearing in a dream is left unspecified. 🧿 Since a prophecy must have an air of mystery, the prophet didn't say exactly where to drill. In his view, the major find will be somewhere between the Northern Region, the Volta Region, and the Central Region — which effectively puts roughly half the country in the crosshairs. 🔍 Like any other wise prophet, Ghana’s herald of oil prepared well before making such statements. At the very least, he learned that in 2026–2027 Ghana does indeed plan to carry out its first exploration operations around the very regions he outlined. ↗️ So something there will almost certainly be found — and people who don't closely follow who's drilling what in their backyard will be able to rejoice at the fact that their country has such an accurate prophet. But will he also be able to name the companies that will come for Ghanaian oil? ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

How did the world media react to the Trump's claims on Venezuela's oil? [ Global ] 🇺🇸Fox Business (Republican): Once home to major U.S. energy investments, Venezuela systematically pushed out Western oil companies under a nationalization campaign launched by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Although Maduro claims to have won re-election to a six-year term in 2024, the U.S. and other international observers say his loyalists stole the election from Edmundo González. 🇺🇸New York Times (Democratic): Mr. Trump paired that with a declaration that a key American goal was to regain access to oil rights that he has repeatedly said had been “stolen” from the United States. With those statements, the president opened a new chapter in American nation building. 🇶🇦Aljazeera: But within hours of the US attacks on Caracas that killed dozens of civilians, officials and military personnel, Trump pivoted to openly discussing oil and US control of Venezuela. 🇬🇧Guardian: Analysts can trace the origins of Trump’s claim – decisions by previous Venezuelan governments to nationalise production – but they argue that the US has no legal claim to Venezuela’s oil. 🇷🇺Sputnik: The expulsion of the US oil majors had given US President Donald Trump the cover to say that Venezuela had "stolen" US oil, says critics of the US president, who contend that the United States itself was now robbing the Latin American state of its sovereign resources. #Global ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow