Devils Below

NewGet-Rich-Quick Scheme of Côte d’Ivoire At the very moment when strange boys in helmets were staging a coup-theatre performance in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire managed to establish a lucrative gas alliance with Benin and Togo 🇧🇯🇹🇬 Benin and Togo have agreed to join forces with Côte d’Ivoire and create, with World Bank support, a regional gas alliance. The main goal is to secure supplies to Togo and Benin, where electricity generation depends heavily on gas. ✌ The ultimate winner here is Côte d’Ivoire: it is the only one of the 3 that has its own gas production and will serve as an entry point for international gas imports — one of the aims of the initiative is joining markets to bargain with international commodity traders. 🇳🇬 At the moment, Benin and Togo receive gas through theWest African Gas Pipeline, which carries gas from Nigeria to Benin, Togo, and Ghana. The reliability of WAGP supplies has been in question for years: there have been breakdowns, pirate activity, and persistent supply issues within Nigeria itself. 🔸 As a result, the Ivorian oil and gas players win a jackpot - they will expand the gas sales and earn on gas transition, through which the World Bank's funds will also flow into the pockets of gas importers. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

🛢 Nigeria’s Black Friday The Nigerian government is rushing to hand out oil concessions for nothing 🛒 Nigeria's oil regulator NURPCreduced the signature bonus for bidders in the oil licensing round to $3–7 million. The bidding process for 50 licenses was launched in London on 1 December. A signature bonus is a non-refundable payment made by a contractor to the government when a petroleum agreement is signed. Firms awarded oil or gas assets are expected to pay this bonus to the government. 💵 The bonus was already reduced last year — from $200 million down to $7–10 million. Now Nigeria's government has apparently judged that oil companies are too poor to pay even that. Maybe it should consider paying Shell and Chevron itself. ⏩Selling off as much oil as possible has become an idée fixe in Abuja. In 2025 the country exceeded its OPEC quota 3 times, while government officials boasted of producing 1.8 million barrels per day and demandedhigher limits. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Stranger Things…. ❓ Parting with money is causing utter confusion among cobalt exporters in the DRC 🤷‍♂️ The Congolese Chamber of Mines — a major association of the country's mining companies — is complaining about ambiguities in the new quota system that the country introduced in October for cobalt exports. 💸 The main source of bewilderment for cobalt producers is the requirement to pre-pay a portion of royalties, which the new rules supposedly oblige them to do under the oversight of the regulator ARECOMS. 📉 However, the logic of the move is perfectly clear: after a February–October export ban, global prices jumped, and Kinshasa now wants to skim off as much revenue as possible. If royalties were collected the usual way — after shipment to Chine which takes 2-3 months — record prices might already fall by then. 💬 Naturally, exporters would prefer to pay taxes and duties based on lower prices at the moment of delivery — but Tshisekedi’s team also knows what it’s doing and will take its share while prices are high. Exporters will not resist for long. After all, 10% of royalties is not the kind of sum worth suffering losses from a complete halt in sales. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Power to Smelt Electricity may kill or save South Africa's chrome production 🇿🇦 South Africa's chrome manufacturershave grabbed preferential electricity tariffs from Eskom, the country’s main power utility. With it a chance arrives to preserve the domestic industry and avoid becoming yet another raw-material appendage of China. 🔥 In the 2000s, South Africa became both the world’s leading producer of chrome ore and the leading manufacturer of ferrochrome. But this advantage started to evaporate when electricity began to soar in price. The smelters of the country’s two major processors — Glencore and Samancor — consume around 6–7% of all electricity in South Africa, while the cost of power has increased eightfold since 2008. ⚙️ As a result, raw ore began to bypass local plants and flow to China, where electricity is roughly 50% cheaper. South African processors responded by shutting down furnaces and threatening the Govt with massive layoffs. The national responsibility of South Africa’s government now is to preserve its place under the industrial sun — even at the cost of preferential treatment, lower revenues and direct state intervention — before Chinese factories occupy that space entirely. ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

Switzerland and Foreign Bribery [ Policy Review ] "Corruption is only bad if I am not involved" 🇨🇭 The image of Switzerland has always been double-sided: on one hand, the country is associated with banking, precision, and reliability — on the other, it has long been a haven for murky, two-faced deals and moral flexibility. 📄 Historically, many global commodity traders have been registered in Switzerland: Trafigura, Glencore, Vitol, Gunvor, and others. We have already written about Glencore and Trafigura who bribed officials in the DRC and Angola. But these cases only stand out in terms of publicity — offering bribes for market access is, in practice, a routine part of the Swiss trading model. 💵 It is enough to note that until 2001, bribes were officially a legitimate basis for tax deductions in Switzerland — the country was called a tax haven for a reason. After 2001, “facilitation fees,” as company accountants labeled them, were banned only if they involved public officials. If it involved a private person, the tax deduction remained legal all the way until 2022. ⛓️ While many developed countries began criminalizing foreign bribery in the late 1970s, Switzerland was unwilling to give up its competitive advantage — extremely permissive legislation. Only in 2000–2001, due to OECD obligations, did the country introduce corresponding criminal and administrative liabilities. 🍫 Even then, the alpine chocolate lovers were in no hurry. The first case in which a company was sanctioned came only in 2011. The first case holding individual managers criminally liable arrived much later — in 2025, linked to Trafigura’s bribes in Angola. 💲 Remarkably, Switzerland profits both from corruption and from fighting it. From 2011 to 2024, Swiss courts closed 14 cases, collecting around $945 million (fines + illicit profits). But unlike for instance the United States, Switzerland does not return these funds to the countries harmed by the corruption. A remarkable ability to find profit everywhere — whether by allowing companies to bribe officials abroad or by charging them for doing so. #PolicyReview Devils Below

Tanzanian-Style Terror [ Cost of Greed ] 🇹🇿💀 Barrick’s North Mara gold mine in Tanzania’s Tarime district has been one of the country’s major industrial projects since 1993. However, for the Kurya indigenous communities living nearby, the mine has also become a symbol of police terror. ⚙️ A 2016 inquiry launched by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals gathered evidence of 65 deaths and 270 injuries resulting from police violence in the area. Civil rights groups go even higher claiming 77 is the base of the death toll. 🛡 What makes the situation darker is the fact that under an official agreement Barrick in fact uses the police essentially as a private security company. 〰️ At the heart of confrontations lies a struggle for land and livelihoods. When big companies arrived in the 1990s and 2000s, villagers lost access to small-scale mining, their primary source of income. ➡️ Police violence occursin two main situations: either villagers gather in groups and break into the site, or vice-versa police demands unfair tolls from legitimate artisanal miners, who have permission to work at the site or nearby. 🏛 Since 2013, villagers have filed lawsuits in courts in the United Kingdom and Canada, accusing Barrick. One of the early UK cases ended in a confidential settlement with no admission of liability. New lawsuits filed in 2022 and 2024 are still pending. This case, like many others, shows how alliances between major corporations and state security forces — justified as “protecting investments” — almost always end up directed against ordinary residents, simply because no one is left to protect them. #CostOfGreed Devils Below

🌐 Weekly News Digest on Africa’s Mineral Industries [ December 1 – December 7 ] This was a week of crude production, logistics projects and US geopolitical ambitions. 💡Here are the key highlights: 🇹🇩 Chad - A Franco-British company has almost doubled its crude oil production in Chad, having reached 18,000 barrels per day 🇨🇬 Congo - Eni puts into operation a massive floating gas-processing ship 🇨🇩 DR Congo - Ivanhoe Mining launches what it calls “the largest and greenest copper smelter in Africa” - US and DRC sign a Strategic Partnership Agreement - US Development Finance Corporation aims at two copper-linked projects in DRC 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea - Armed pirates seized 9 crew members of a LNG carrier and vanish without a trace 🇲🇱 Mali - Mali recovers about $1.2 billion from its mining sector in the wake of an audit 🇲🇿 Mozambique - Investors withdraw support for TotalEnergies’ gas project in Mozambique - President Chapo defends TotalEnergies against an accusation of complicity in mass murder 🇳🇦 Namibia - A former journalist Modestus Amutse nominated as the country’s new Minister of Industry, Energy and Mines 🇳🇪 Niger - Niger plans to a French state-owned nuclear company over several million tonnes of radioactive waste - Rebels from Niger's MPLJ movement are intensifying attacks on the assets of the Chinese oil giant CNPC 🇳🇬 Nigeria - Nigerian company responsible for monitoring Nigeria’s Trans Niger Pipeline decides to hire town criers - The British company Jupiter Lithium sues Nigerian government over violations of its rights to develop lithium in Kaduna State - Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivered a speech at an economic conference in Imo State - Chevron plans to expand its operations in Nigeria 🇿🇦 South Africa - South African group Yellowstone sign a concession to expand the Kasumbalesa border checkpoint between the DRC and Zambia. 🇺🇬 Uganda - In 2027, the UK-based Blencowe Resources plans to begin graphite mining in Uganda #NewsDigest Devils Below

Chevron Re-falls in Love with Nigeria Falling levels of oil theft from Nigeria’s pipelines start bringing foreign companies back 🌐 Jim Schwartz, the head of Chevron’s Nigerian subsidiary, announced with great satisfaction that in 2025 the company recorded no oil theft and no attacks on its pipelines in Nigeria, promising an expansion of operations in 2026. 🔸 Before this, oil majors such as Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron itself had been selling off their onshore assets to local companies, in part because of widespread theft. In 2023, losses were estimated at up to 400,000 barrels per day, nearly 25–30% of total production. ⏩ A full year without theft is the longest such period in Chevron’s history in Nigeria — and it matches a broader trend. In 2025 the government finally managed to introduce measures that pushed oil theft down to its lowest level in more than a decade. 🔸 A revived interest from oil majors is hardly a reason to celebrate. It is merely a sign that some symptoms have been contained and gangs of criminal enthusiasts now cannot access the pipelines as easily as they used to. Meanwhile, corruption and shadow schemes are still persistent in the country's most lucrative sector. Ordinary Nigerians may start seeing real benefits only when transparency is established in the oil sector and the beneficiaries of the shadow oil economy inside the state are finally exposed. Devils Below

Yes, Indeed, “Local Partners”... [ Cost of Greed ] 🇦🇴 The Angolan government systematically requires companies that want to operate in the country to enter joint ventures with “local partners”. In reality, these “partners” are often members of the elite and well-connected oligarchs who divert oil revenues away from the population. 🌟 Perhaps the most notorious case came in 2009, courtesy of the entourage of José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola’s President from 1979 to 2017. Unfortunately, Angolan officials were not particularly inventive: the corruption scheme was a classic one — let a foreign company in on preferential terms, while demanding stakes in its subsidiaries for individuals in the ruling elite. 💵 To enter the Angolan oil market in 2009, the Swiss firm Trafigura aligned itself with one of the era’s key power-brokers and corruption figures, General Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento (better known as General “Dino”). 🤝 Trafigura and General Dino created the joint venture DT Group (DT = Dino and Trafigura). It secured a de facto monopoly on supplying all refined petroleum products to Angola and engaged in exporting part of Angola’s crude abroad. Through another company — Cochan, also tied to Dino — Trafigura built a nationwide network of fuel stations. ⚙️ This joint venture enabled Trafigura to set up one of its most lucrative arrangements. Upstream, Trafigura obtained crude oil from the state company Sonangol at preferential prices. Downstream, it supplied Angolans with fuel refined overseas through its service stations. 👁 Despite the mind-numbing simplicity of the scheme and its public exposure, the main actors walked away unscathed. After a change of leadership in 2017, General Dino simply exited the stage and vanished. Trafigura continues to operate in Angola today and even owns part of the railway connecting Angola with the DRC. 🔖 I first learnt about this case in The World For Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy. #CostOfGreed Devils Below

Not by US Alone In the push to facilitate access to Africa’s Copperbelt, the US is not alone — other interested parties include South Africa 🌐 South African group Yellowstone has signed a long-term concession with the DRC worth $600 million to expand the Kasumbalesa border checkpoint between the DRC and Zambia. 🔸 This is an example of how extractive approach often masquerades as the noble cause of intra-African trade promotion. ⏩ Officers of Yellowstone speak about facilitating trade between neighbors, although in reality the project simply ensures that trucks carrying copper from the landlocked states of Central Africa reach seaports a bit faster. 🔸 Kasumbalesa is essentially a border truck camp from which minerals from the Copperbelt disperse toward seven different ports, including Durban, Beira, Nacala, Dar es Salaam, Walvis Bay, Lobito, and Luanda. 🇿🇦 South Africa, while not the primary beneficiary of this trade, is certainly a significant one. Its ports are heavily loaded with endless flows of resources from the Copperbelt, and in turn it sends heavy machinery and mining supplies — either imported from abroad or manufactured in South Africa itself. Devils Below

⚔️Niger Under Attack Insurgents in Niger cannot sleep without thinking about oil (just like me, frankly). 🌟 Rebels from Niger's MPLJ movement, which seeks to restore the previous political order under President Bazoum — ousted in July 2023 — are intensifying attacks on the oil assets of the Chinese company CNPC. 💥 This night a video has appeared allegedly showing an explosion at some oil facility in the Agadem area, followed by MPLJ’s claim of responsibility. How serious the damage is and what exactly is blowing up in the footage remains unclear. ⏩A similar video surfaced already in November, where the same forces also attacked, again at night, what was believed to be a pipeline linked to the same oilfield. The rebels’ main demand is that the Chinese stop supporting Niger's ruling regime. ⏩ For the Chinese, this is essentially usual working environment. Even before the recent operations of MPLJ, the same pipelines had been blown up by other groups, and in February, a local ISISaffiliate even kidnapped two CNPC employees. 🔸 Since Niamey can hardly survive without oil, they will cling to the Chinese with both hands, protecting the black gold at all costs. 🌑 In this particular case, the repeated night attacks may indicate that MPLJ still lacks the strength for something bigger — or that expelling or even insulting CNPC seriously is not the real goal. Someone may simply want a share of the oil revenues. Devils Below

A New East India Company? ❔What structures will play the key role in projecting American economic influence in Africa? 🗽 An increasingly important role in advancing US interests is now played by the US Development Finance Corporation, created in 2019 through the merger of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and a branch of USAID. 🕯 It is headed by millionaire and investor Benjamin Black, appointed in October 2025. Black’s appointment was purely political — he had no background in international affairs, but he had long criticized USAID for spending on social and environmental programs, advocating instead for investments aligned with US economic interests. 💰 The agency receives funding from the US budget and has already invested roughly $50 billion worldwide, including in resource-sector projects in Nigeria, Uganda, the DRC, Angola, Gabon, and Zambia. 📈 Its involvement in mineral-resource projects is only beginning to gain momentum, especially in light of new announcements following the signing of the Washington Accords. In 2024, >50% of all agency projects were resource-related, although a large share of these were investments in agriculture. ⏩ So far the agency seems to be filling the gap between Washington’s desire to take part in the global competition over critical minerals and the tendency of American private investors to choose stable, predictable ventures and avoid geopolitical risk. If Washington truly plans to compete with China beyond mere rhetoric, this will certainly imply greater investment and much more working noise from the USDFC in the future. Devils Below