Devils Below

Nigeria’s Central Bank has raised gold reserves to $3.5bn through buying locally refined bullion. 🌐 The Central Bank of Nigeria says the gold was refined to internationalstandards and added to official reserves as part of a reserve diversification push. This reportedly brings the CBN’s total gold holdings to $3.5bn. 🔸 The bullion was aggregated by the Solid Minerals Development Fund, Nigeria’s fiscal vehicle for mining proceeds, and bought in naira at prices linked to London Bullion Market benchmarks. 🔸The CBN thus accumulates gold in this way, spending only the domestic currency that it issues itself. DRC, Ghana, Zimbabwe and many other nations also have similar policies. #News ✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔵Chinese MinesProtected Better Than Embassies and Military Bases🔵 🇿🇼 Chinese mining supervisor Yang Zhian has beenjailed for an effective 5 years after a court found him guilty of culpable homicide in the death of a Zimbabwean gold panner. The incident happened at Long Fortune Mine, a gold site in Zimbabwe, when 31-year-old Pardon Gumbo was shot in the forehead on 5 March 2025. 🔸 That day the deceased and a group of artisanal miners had illegally entered the site. When a security guard failed to stop them, Zhian fired towards the group. Gumbo was struck on the forehead and later pronounced dead. 🔸The Bulawayo High Court acquitted Yang of murder but called use of a firearm “reckless,” sentencing him to eight years with three suspended, leaving an effective five. 💬The use of a firearm in those circumstances was completely reckless, said Justice Chivhayo, the judge who handed the sentence. The family rejected small compensation offers and called the sentence inadequate. The fact that murder on the territory of a foreign mine in Zimbabwe is not considered murder, as if it were an embassy, is a disgrace, despite all the successes in Zimbabwe's industrial policy. #News ✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

No One Cares How Many People Died? Yet another landslide in eastern DRC fuels informationwarfare 🌐Another major landslide at DR Congo’s Rubayacoltan mine on Tuesday results in an undefined death toll, with Kinshasa and M23 pointing at strikingly different numbers of victims. ⏩ The landslide follows a similar tragedy on February 28, which allegedly killed some 200 miners. 🔸 From the beginning, both tragedies were about the Kinshasa-M23 tug-of-war, and to lesser extent about the victims. The Congo mines ministry claimed the death toll this time also amounted to 200 people, including 70 children — while AFC/M23 said “only 5-6” people died. 🔸 While the Rubaya mine is currently under control of AFC/M23, in early February it was mentioned on the list of projects Kinshasa offered to the US under the Strategic Partnership Framework. The Tuesday landslide is now turning into an excellent reason for Kinshasa and Washington to increase pressure on the rebels and Rwanda to squeeze the asset under the pretext of greater safety for workers — and having turned into a politically sensitive propaganda tool, people's deaths are unlikely to be ever investigated. #News ✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

Meet the 2-Meter Stretch of Road That Holds Up the Global Copper Market This isn’t the Strait of Hormuz — here, Iran isn’t needed to disrupt global trade. 🌐 On February 28, in Zambia’s Kasumbalesa border area, heavy rains caused small flooding that destroyed a bridge, whichused to transport Congolese copper to South African ports. 🔸 While Zambia and Congo share other border crossings, Kasumbalesa is the main one, and often has queues of lorries stretching for tens of miles as they wait to cross. 🚀 Unlike the Middle East, no one fired rockets at this bridge, but its concrete structure still collapsed damaged by the endless stream of ore trucks. 🔸Now, this critical transport artery is blocked — not just for trucks, but also for ordinary people crossing the border between the two countries. Reportedly, Zambia's Road Agency is going to restore access to the route in a couple of hours from now. Infrastructure is my favorite topic in mining. You can always tell when someone cut corners just by looking at the roads. #News ✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔵Nigeria: 30-Year Old Story Repeats Itself🔵 Nigeria signed a $1.3 billion pact to build a new alumina refinery — despite having already lost one due to power shortages 🌐 The deal with Africa Finance Corporation, a development finance institution, includes the development of an alumina refinery designed to process 1 million tonnes of bauxite a year and run on a gas-fired cogeneration plant for steam and power. 🔸 The same statement projects 20 years of operation at 95% utilisation and total output of 19 million tonnes of alumina, plus $1.2 billion a year added to GDP and $8 billion in foreign exchange earnings across the project’s life. 🔸In the 1990s, Nigeria had already built an aluminum plant, ALSCON, which was also supposed to produce crazy amounts of aluminum. After that, it turned out that there was not enough power to operate from the national grid, and a local plant couldn't produce it due to gas shortages. Nigeria is full of industrial plants that the government has built forgetting about power or infrastructure — against the background of constant blackouts due to the debts and lack of gas supply, I assume that building new ones wouldn't really help. #News ✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🔵Breakthrough on Diplomatic Front?🔵 The United States eventually hit Rwanda’s Rwanda Defence Force with sanctions 🌐The US has imposed sanctions targeting the RDF and its senior officers, with Washington calling for an immediate withdrawal from eastern Congo and blaming Rwanda’s backing for the battlefield gains of AFC/M23. 🔸OFAC, a U.S. Treasury Department sanctions office, lists four designated individuals including Vincent Nyakarundi, Rwanda’s army chief of staff, alongside the RDF as an entity. 💬The RDF has supported M23 as it seized territory in eastern DRC, including provincial capitals Goma and Bukavu, along with strategic mining sites in eastern DRC. ⁉️ The 4 officers and RDF themselves are not particularly in danger — except for the seizure of their property in the US and the ban on transactions involving them — which can be successfully ignored as long as sanctions don't touch Rwanda's Ministry of Defense. 🔸While its a major event, the sanctions were intended as symbolic in order to demonstrate peacekeeping activity in the east of the DRC, or, more likely, to hint to Rwanda and the M23 that it was time to allow the US to access minerals under their control,which Washington clearly had its eye on. #News ✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

Good morning! Everyone shares photos of occasional drone strikes on Dubai hotels — and I have compiled something more economically devastating: a selection of Iran's strikes on the oil infrastructure in the Persian Gulf. 🔴The 1st photo and video: the consequences of the strike on the Saudi Ras Tanura refinery. The 2nd photo shows a fire on a tanker sailing through the Strait of Hormuz in defiance of Iran's ban. In general, traffic has not stopped there and tankers generally ignore this ban. For some reason Iran is holding back — since the infrastructure is defenseless, they could possibly knock out half of all oil refining in Saudi Arabia at once, as they already did in 2019. 💡 Anytime you've ideas to suggest, interesting topics to share, or feel that some facts are unfairly overlooked — don’t hesitate to drop a comment here or DM the channel. ✈️Stay informed - @devilsbelow

Senegal: Art of Ignoring Problems at Home and Abroad 🌐Two Senegalese NGOs have filed a case against BP, the famous British oil-and-gas major, and a US oil company Kosmos, with the UK National Contact Point, a mechanism handling OECD complaints. The NGOs' claim is tied to the GTA offshore LNG project on the maritime border between Senegal and Mauritania. 🔸The two NGOs accuse the multinationals of polluting environment around the fishing livelihoods in the region, also referring to instances of restricted access around the project for fishermen. Civil society representatives are also challenging the validity of an environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) created by BP. 🔸According to the authors of the complaint. the Senegalese authorities have largely ignored local concerns, adding that the OECD looks like a body whose ruling they won't be able to neglect. 💸However, while the Senegalese government is struggling with debts to France and the IMF, gas dollars are needed to keep the situation under control. It is unlikely that the project ultimate beneficiaries will create obstacles for the debts repayment and the flow of gas earnings for the sake of a few local fishermen. #News ✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🇨🇩DR Congo’s president Félix Tshisekedi has replaced Gécamines’ chair and CEO after they opposed a US-backed deal. 🌐 Reuters says Tshisekedi removed Guy Robert Lukama as chair and Placide Nkala Basadilua as CEO of Gécamines, Congo’s state mining company, and appointed Deogratias Ngele Masudi as chair and Baraka Kabemba as CEO. ⏩ The shake-up is linked to Kinshasa’s talks with Washington on a minerals partnership. Gécamines owns mining leases of Chemaf — the company that the US-based Virtus Minerals seeks to take over with the backing of Washington. ⏩Gecamines blocked the sale of Chemaf to the Chinese back in 2024, but its management was apparently unhappy about just handing the assets over to the Americans instead, seeking to establish its own control over Chemaf's copper and cobalt mine — now the transfer may advance without obstacles. Although the DRC, in exchange for its zealous defense of American interests, has already been able to liberate the city of Uvira just for free (the M23 withdrew from there after Trump's request), Washington is not yet ready for further engagement in the conflict. Even sanctions against Rwanda, for which Senator Lindsey Graham allegedly personally stood up, apparently no one will be introduced yet. #News ✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🌐Weekly News Digest [ February 23 – March 1 ] That was a week when some rules were reset overnight, and others were neglected outright. 💡But what exactly happened? 🌍 Global — US President Trump ordered strikes on Iran — Anglo American marks down De Beers to $2.3bn as African states eye bids 🇨🇩 DR Congo — Kolwezi nosebleed cases spotlight Ruashi Mining amid a land-rights dispute 🇬🇭 Ghana — Ghana’s GoldBod targets 127 tonnes a year in artisanal gold purchases 🇲🇼 Malawi — Sovereign Metals names US Traxys as future trader for Malawi’s graphite 🇳🇬 Nigeria — Nigeria’s Gas Shortfalls Blamed for Constant Blackouts 🇸🇴 Somalia — Somaliland offers the US mineral access and military bases in exchange for recognition — Turkey builds a naval base in Somalia as offshore gas drilling plans accelerate 🇿🇦 South Africa — Ekapa diamond miner presumes five trapped workers dead and files for liquidation 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe bans exports of raw ores and lithium concentrates effective immediately — Chinese firms start announcing new lithium factories in Zimbabwe #NewsDigest ✈️Stay informed - @devilsbelow

The Chinese Start Announcing New Factories in Zimbabwe 🌐 Construction has begun on a new lithium sulphate plant in Zimbabwe, led by Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group, a Chinese lithium chemicals company. 🔸 Harare just suspended exports of all raw minerals and lithium concentrates with immediate effect, including shipments in transit, citing “malpractices” and leakages. 🔸As we have already written, this step is aimed at putting pressure on mining companies to start announcing the construction of factories before the enactment of the original lithium concentrates exports ban, expected in 2027. 🔸Yahua itself said its understanding is that the measures mainly target illegal exports and expects to receive permission within two weeks to resume shipments. Naturally, the company expects the resumption of exports now — and how long will it take to complete the recently announced factory, doesn't really matter. Maybe never. ✈️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

Twenty Burkinabes Arrested in Ghana 🌐 In one of its most successful raids, Ghana police arrested 38 suspected illegal miners near New Abirem, including 17 Burkinabè nationals and nine juveniles aged 13–17. Investigators are reportedly “looking into the kingpins” because the equipment on site signals “significant financial backing.” 🔸 The February 27 raid hit a sophisticated gold mining setup hidden within a palm plantation at Ntoranang — officers destroyed pumps, power plants, hoses and makeshift shelters, and the suspects are due in court on March 2. 🔸 While 17 miners were of Burkinabe origin, i.e. foreign nationals, more alarming is the fact that among the remaining 21, 9 were teenagers. The growing involvement of children and teenagers in illegal mining is due to the fact that this type of activity, like sports betting, promises quick and big earnings. ✈️Stay informed - @devilsbelow