Devils Below

🌐Weekly News Digest [ December 22 – December 28 ] That was a week of delays, resumptions and terminations of resource projects. 💡Here are the key highlights: 🇨🇩 DR Congo - DRC bans processing units from accepting ore from artisanal miners 🇬🇦 Gabon - Gabon announces an audit of the mining sector 🇬🇭 Ghana - Ghana’s only oil refinery resumes operations after years of downtime 🇬🇼 Guinea - Guinea is planning its first mining conference 🇲🇼 Malawi - An Australian company delays its niobium project 🇲🇿 Mozambique - President and TotalEnergies clash over Cabo Delgado gas project schedule 🇳🇪 Niger - Niger’s exports exceed imports, driven by oil 🇳🇬 Nigeria - Nigeria to resume oil exploration in Ogoniland 🇸🇩 Sudan - China’s CNPC is seeking to terminate its oil contracts amid war #NewsDigest ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Dressing Up the Bride👗 The Nigerian government engages in legalistic tinkering to polish the image of a state corporation 🇳🇬 It has emerged that Nigeria’s president Tinubu has written off about $1.4 billion in debts owed by the state oil corporation NNPC to the government — effectively all of the company’s debts before 2025. 🔖 Fixing the image of a company long seen as inefficient and corrupt is viewed by the current president as one of the symbols of his tenure. Over the past year, the corporation has changed its head and begun actively seeking private partners for stalled projects. 📣 There have been no fewer loud statements than real changes. At various points, NNPC has claimed to have defeated oil theft or to have posted record profits. Given that its 2024 profits alone ($3.6 billion) would have been more than enough to cover all debts, the decision to write them off is clearly not driven by economic logic. 🧻 The guys in Abuja are trying to further whitewash the company’s image — though the debt write-off is aimed less at the general public than at "serious" investors. In addition to attracting new partners, the government also wants to sell a stake in NNPC on the stock exchange. ⏩ The welfare of millions of citizens and Nigeria’s energy security depend on whether the government can genuinely rehabilitate NNPC. Despite all the noise, this may turn out to be little more than stage dressing with no real change, and such blanket debt forgiveness hardly helps the fight against corruption within the sector. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

🌟Secret Agents and Diamonds in the Heart of Africa [ Secret Agents ] 📍 We have already written about the military operation "No Return" and tragic expulsion of artisanal miners from the Marange diamond field by the Zimbabwean authorities. This is a continuation of the same story, but now about how diamond sales covertly financed Zimbabwe's security services. 🛑 Having expulsed the miners, the Zimbabwean government transferred Marange diamonds to a small group of companies. Each was set up by the state itself, usually in partnership with a private investor. 💥 In total, 6 such companies were created. Although on paper they looked like standard concessions, international muckrakers suggest that in reality they served the interests of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and Zimbabwe’s military-industrial complex. 🫥 One of these companies was Kusena Diamonds, allegedly created and partially managed by members of the CIO’s economic department. The CIO itself was often described as highly partisan and helping the ruling ZANU-PF hold power. The agency could use diamond revenues as an additional source of funding implying no public accountability. 🚗 Two other companies, Anjin and Jinan (yes, they simply rearranged the syllables), were 50% genuinely owned by Chinese investors. In practice, they operated as a single entity, with 40% of Anjin — the larger of the two — belonging to Zimbabwe Defence Industries, the state arms manufacturer. After US sanctions in 2005, it went into survival mode and began dabbling in anything it could, from banana plantations to diamond mining. 🇺🇸 In this sense, Zimbabwe is not unique. Using illicit or opaque sources of financing is a favorite pastime of intelligence services everywhere, even — especially — in the United States. The Zimbabwean case, however, illustrates a typical local pattern, with off-budget revenues flowing from mineral extraction rather than from drug or arms trafficking, as was the case in the American Iran–Contra scandal. #SecretAgents ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Gas for Everyone🏭 Nigeria is nearing the completion of a gas pipeline to northern regions, but which ones? 🌐 Summing up the outgoing year, the head of Nigeria’s NNPC said that engineers are already welding the final seams on the 600-kilometer Trans-Nigeria gas pipeline, which will for the first time connect the country’s northern regions to the gas fields in the South. Naturally, the construction of the pipeline promises ⚡️immediate economic growth⚡️. However, the question of to what extent this gas pipeline is really meant for northern Nigeria remains open. If the goal were simply to supply the region with fuels, sources in neighboring Niger and Chad might have sufficed. 🔗 Beyond supplying gas to remote regions, the project has another purpose. It is the starting point for a roughly4,000-kilometer pipeline across Africa to Europe, which the same NNPC hopes to build together with Algeria’s Sonatrach by 2030. 🔽 In that sense, the “northern regions” this pipeline ultimately leads to could turn out to be Italy, Spain, and other European folks who will certainly have more money to buy gas than any entrepreneurs in northern Nigeria. On the other hand, no one knows when the mega-pipeline will actually be completed — so the Nigerian north still has a chance. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Unrest broke out in Lualaba Province in southern DRC following the recent decision by the Ministry of Mines to ban processing units from accepting copper and cobalt from artisanal miners. ➡️As expected, trying to insert itself into the artisanal copper and cobalt supply chains, the guys in Kinshasa cut off a source of income for thousands of young men, offering no viable alternative. ➡️If selling and earning more is the core idea behind the policies of a state that offers nothing to its people in return, even what it does to protect its own interest will be a screwup. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Mysticism All Around Us ✨ What is wrong with oil production and refining in Ghana? 🧿 Ghana’s only oil refinery has resumed operations after years of downtime. But this is not just about a refinery. It is about an almost mystical pattern that keeps preventing the country from getting oil production and oil refining to work at the same time. 🌟 The plant in question, Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), itself is already remarkable. It was built by Italians back in 1960 — exactly 50 years before Ghana began producing its own oil — and was designed to process low-quality crude from Angola and Nigeria. ⚙️ The refinery lived happily right up until 2010, when Ghana started producing its own oil. At that point, it turned out that the plant, by then state-owned, was obsolete and held together only by multimillion-dollar debts. 💥 On top of that, local crude grades were simply not suitable for it. Time and again the refinery halted operations, saw an explosion and fire in 2017 and was finally shut down in 2021. 🚩 Today, fresh and modernized, it is opening its doors once again — but this time a crisis threatens Ghana’s oil sector facing the depletion of the country’s main fields. ❓ How long the refinery will coexist with the local crude production this time and whether it will once again have to be rebuild for crude from another part of the continent, remains an open question. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Who Knows What Trump Wants?🇺🇸 Where the White House’s interest in Nigeria comes from 💥 After a public polemic over the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, the United States went even further and carried out airstrikes on IS targets in northwestern Nigeria, on December 25. This once again raises the question: what lies behind this apparent obsession with interreligious relations on the other side of the world — humanitarianism, geopolitics, or a desire to get access to Nigerian resources? 🔸 The last option is suggested by a similar situation with Venezuela, where Trump has openly claimed its oil. Nigeria, however, is different. There've been no such statements, nor are there few signs that American economic interests have been infringed. Nigeria is Africa's largest exporter of crude to the US, and the Dangote refinery actively purchases crude and technology from the US itself. ⏩ However, this may well be linked to the recent noise around proposals to resume oil exploration in Nigeria's Ogoniland. There may be a deal with the US companies getting new oil permits, and in exchange the US will "help" Nigeria's government deal with extremists. This is particularly interesting given that the president's national security adviser Nuhu Ribadu is responsible for both issues. 🔸 This can hardly be simple humanitarianism. Christians are persecuted and human rights violated here and there. It is hard to believe that the White House resident would spend missiles out of sympathy for ordinary Nigerians. ⏩ The last option is geopolitics — more precisely, an attempt to establish some basic format of permanent US presence in West Africa, just to keep Nigeria and other countries withing the US sphere of influence. ⏩ It's not clear what the balance may be between these considerations. Today the oil factor seems to be an unlikely driver of the US interest in Nigeria — I would bet on geopolitics — however, it may well turn out vice-versa when the whole story unfolds. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Dubious Results of the Year 🇳🇬Niger has overcome its foreign trade deficit — but whatdid it cost? 🌐 In 2025, Niger’s exports finally exceeded the value of its imports, meaning it now has more hard currency to service debt, invest, and purchase goods abroad. Yet once again, oil was the main driver of this growth. 📈 Over the past few years, Niger has posted striking export growth: from CFA 0.6 billion in 2023 to 0.9 billion in 2024, and then to CFA 1.6 billion in 2025. A major factor was the launch of the oil pipeline to Benin in 2024, which made it possible to ship larger volumes of crude oil for sale. ⏩ For Niger, this is essentially a turning point. Either it begins reinvesting the revenues it is already earning into more promising sectors of the economy, or oil prices will fall (by the end of the year they are already quite low), or exports will take a hit from insurgents who are already working overtime to blow up pipelines — and the opportunity will be lost. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

A Terrible Christmas Gift 🇨🇩The Congo dips into the pockets of artisanal miners 🌐 The DRC government seems far more concerned about leaking revenues than about the M23 problem in the east. Having barely finished the saga of the cobalt export ban, the Congolese authorities moved on December 19 to ban processing units from accepting copper and cobalt from artisanal miners. ⚙️ These efforts are part of an old government strategy. Back in 2019, the state created a special company, Entreprise Générale du Cobalt (EGC), granting it a monopoly on purchasing cobalt from artisanal miners. Yet from its creation until now, EGC has managed to collect only about 1,000 tonnes of cobalt — some 20% of their annual production. 🔧 The purpose of the latest decision is obvious: to fix this imbalance. With plants and marketers no longer allowed to buy directly, miners will have no option to sell their ore to the nearest facility. The only way to get paid will be through EGC. 🔽 One might hope that this would finally put an end to child labor and the endless casualties resulting from poor safety conditions at cobalt and copper sites. But today it looks more like the government will simply pocket part of the revenue, while the citizens lose the already meager incomes they earned from artisanal mining. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

China Is Losing Partners Chinese companies abandon one of their oldest allies in Africa 🌐 A 30-year chapter in the relationship between Chinese oil producers and Sudan has come to an end. Against the backdrop of ongoing fighting and the continued advance of the RSF, China’s CNPC is seeking to terminate its existing oil contracts, including its rights to Block 6. 🚩 For China, this is not only a financial loss but a symbolic one. In the 1990s, Sudan was one of the first frontiers of China’s oil expansion, as Beijing anticipated shortages in domestic production amid rapid economic growth. 💰 The financial implications are no less serious. Along with the loss of assets, Chinese analysts are warning that Sudan may soon be unable to service its debts to China. In addition, oil supplies from South Sudan, where CNPC is still present for now, are also under threat. 🔽 Such cases are the inevitable downside of China’s style of economic expansion. While Western investors often flee as soon as conditions stop being comfortable, Chinese companies can afford more stubbornness, backed by state support. But insensitivity to risk can also lead to a grim ending — as Sudan has shown. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Where Are Geopolitics? 🇲🇼 Though Malawi does nothing special, it's a nightmare for mining companies. Yet another "investor" has announced delays to its project in Malawi — this time, it is a niobium venture, now not expected to kick off before 2028. Despite the presence of rare minerals and absence of competition, the premature demise of loudly announced projects is a Malawi classic. ❓ But why is that? Why do the international "investors" which are usually ready to kill each other for assets and which move thousands of tons of soil in neighboring countries do so bad in Malawi? ⏩ Malawi does have resources, but it has almost none of the “traditional” ones like oil or gold. So, companies usually go for something rarer. Over just the past few months, there have been announcements about uranium, rutile, and now niobium projects in the country. ⏩ Whenever deposits of yet another element from the depths of the periodic table are discovered, another British or Australian company spawns on the doorstep of the Malawian government, full of ambition to build a "China-free" supply of this unquestionably-useful-element-of-the-future. Very quickly, however, it becomes clear that while the foreigners have plenty of ambition, they have very little money. ⏩The financing problem in turn exists because the hypothetical guys on Wall Street cannot quite grasp why they should mine the unquestionably-useful-element-of-the-future in Malawi when there are countries with established production and the infrastructure. And what is niobium anyway?... 🔽 As a result, Malawi turns into a place of endless tragedy for companies that get licenses, loudly announce grand plans, and then sit on those licenses, waiting for some international bank to come and finance their plans. #PolicyReview ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Debt Forces Haste New disputes around the Cabo Delgado gas project ⚔️ A rift stroke the camp of Mozambique’s authorities and TotalEnergies. While both sides are eager to restart the Cabo Delgado gas project as quickly as possible, Total now pushes for more favorable terms by threatening delays. 💵Project revenues are urgently needed by the government. Beyond delayed income, the issue is the $900 million bond debt, which awaits repayments in 2028. Cabo Delgado will produce its first gas in 2029 at the earliest. 🔥 Fully aware of this predicament, Total is refusing to relaunch the complex until the state agrees to extend the license and compensate the company for the 4-year shutdown caused by insurgent attacks in Cabo Delgado in 2021. ⏩ TotalEnergies is thereby trying to negotiate better terms with the government anticipating the lack of foreign currency to service its debts. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow