Devils Below

🇲🇱Is Mali So Scary? 🌏 On October 10 another investor got lured by the gold-promising soil of Southern Mali. Australian Toubani Resources with the funds borrowed from Singaporean Eagle Eye Asset Holdingsdecided to invest some $258 million in Mali's Kobada gold mine. 💵 In what is projected to become one of Africa's major gold mines, Malian government will get a 10% share free of charge thanks to the new Mining Code of 2023. The output of Kobada is expected to reach 162,000 oz/year, which is close to Allied Gold's Sadiola complex. ❗️ Mali is often criticized for what is called "resource nationalism" and alledged "pivoting from Western investors to courting Russian interests". However, while more and more investors enter Malian gold sectore, there is still not a single Russian large-scale miner in the country as well as no other major deprived investor except for Barrick. Devils Below

🇨🇩 Roads, Loads, and Nodes: DRC's Cobalt Family Affair A major investigation by Africa Intelligence has sent political shockwaves through the DRC. The recent report reveals what it calls the dangerous connections of the Tshisekedi clan with the looting cartels. For those who doesn't have €2,000 for subscription who doesn't have time to read the full text,here are the main claims of the report: 👉 The story began unfolding when a delegation from Kinshasa composed of senior officers and government inspectors was denied access to one of the mining sites owned by Kazakh Eurasian Resource Group in Lualaba Province earlier this year. 👁 The mine, officially suspended since 2023, was found to be operational under the protection of armed units from the presidential Republican Guard. 📑 The internal ERG report identified networks of Lebanese and Chinese operators deeply embedded in the illegal trade in relation to ERG's suspended assets. 🤝 President Tshisekedi’s brothers, Christian Tshisekedi and Thierry Tshisekedi have allegedly tried to act as mediators between illegal mining cartels and ERG. Tshisekedi made a visit on September 10 to Kazakhstan to engage directly with President Tokayev and ERG leadership, possibly trying to cover up the affair that could tarnish the reformist self-positioning of his government. Devils Below

🇬🇭Ghana’s Ecocide Push 🌏 A coalition of 20+ Ghanaian civil society groups has urgedthe country's Presidentto back an ecocide law to tackle illegal gold mining crisis, citing evidence of mercury, arsenic and lead contamination across rivers, soils and food chains. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged ... and thou shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. Revelations 11:18 ❓ In July 2025, environment ministers at African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (Nairobi) placed ecocide among Africa's strategic environmental priorities for 2025 to 2027, marking the first time a UN forum has explicitly recognised it as a continental concern. The DRC and some other countries intend to amend the ICC's Rome Statute to include ecocide. (The video shows poisoned water being processed for treatment at a plant in Ghana's Central Region) Devils Below

🇿🇼Tensions Rise In Zimbabwe Over Chinese Nationals 🌏 Police in Mutoko, Zimbabwe are investigatingafter a Chinese national allegedly shot and killed a Zimbabwean citizen at a gold mine on October 9, 2025. 🇨🇳 China is known for its thousand-year history, full of traditions and rituals. Accordingly, in Zimbabwe Chinese mining staff is apparently building its own tradition of killing local personnel, which dates back to at least 2020, when a mine owner also shot two Zimbabwean workers. 👉 In a statement issued by the company (see the pic) which runs the gold mine, the victim was called a member of a criminal group that was planning to rob the site, accidentally shot by an armed on-duty engineer who fired into the air. 👉 A more popular version says that the victim was working at the same mine and was killed after asking the Chinese for salary. Though both sound unconvincing, the history with a Chinese battle engineer shoting into the air and killing a person looks fairly more suspicious. (The video shows the members of the local community surrounding a group of Chinese nationals caught not far from the corpse). Devils Below

🇨🇩Another Week, Another Rule: The DRC's Cobalt Playbook Complimented Again 🌏 The DRC’s mining regulator said today it will revoke cobalt export quotas from any company that fails to ship its full allocation, breaches tax or environmental rules, or transfers quotas to third parties. Three days ago it was announced that the allocations of quotas under the new system will be based on companies' production and shipment data for the previous three years. And two days earlierwe learned that miners breaching the system would be banned permanently. 👁 The quotas are to come in force starting from October 16. In its current form, the system allows the government to regulate cobalt production almost manually. Devils Below

🌍 Rare Earth, Real Stakes: What's In A Name of REE? [1/2] 🌏 On Thursday (October 9) China imposedadditional restrictions on the exports of rare earth elements (REEs) which provoked a new iteration of tariff hysteria on the part of the US. Amid these developments we've decided to speak about what's the situation with REEs in Africa. 🤓 As the reader may already know, Africa is rich in Cobalt, Manganese, Grahite, Lithium - so, these are not rare earths. The REAL REEs are Europium, Holmium and 15 more "-um" elements no one had ever heard of, since their formation in the Mesozoic and up to two or three years ago. 🎛The significance of REEs in our high-tech era has also become a household name: certainly, without them Chinese batteries would not battery, and American F-35 airfighters would not airfight. If this explanation seems insufficient, one may merely look and the degree of tensions that arise any time somebody (mostly the PRC) tries to limit exports of REEs. As regards Africa, the largest known deposits of this flesh and blood of high-tech are located in Tanzania, Angola and Kenya (see one of the pics). ❗️Surprisingly, the only known REEs producers are completely different: they are Madagascar and Nigeria, which is now the leading REEs exporter in Africa. ‼️What's even more surprising, before 2024 nobody had even had an idea of Nigeria's potential leadership in the sphere of REEs. And then the country started exporting some 7,000 tons of REEs oxydes literally out of the blue. 👇 The question of who, where and how extracts and produces Nigerian REEs still remains vague. Next week we are going to publish one of our most interesting articles, which will be devoted to this issue. Devils Below

🇲🇱🇺🇸 Moral Outrage at 9, Due Diligence at 10 A US mining company Flagship Gold Corp has signed an agreement with Malian government marking the first American investment in Mali's gold mining under the revised 2023 Mining code (which grants the state up to 30 percent ownership in new projects and eliminates some tax exemptions). Principles are one thing, $4,000 an ounce is another. Confucius, 5th century BCE 🤝 Despite accusations of “resource nationalism,” Bamako has already successfully renegotiated the terms of operating with a series of companies: Allied Gold, B2Gold, Resolute Mining, Ganfeng (among others). The only big outlier here remains Barrick. The object of the latest agreement is Morila gold mine, a world-class open-pit in the country's South-East that was forfeited in June, 2025after Australian Firefinch abandoned it in 2022. It is believed the mine contains approximately 2.5 million oz in remaining reserves. Devils Below

🇲🇱Mali’s Loulo Prepares to Blast Again 🌏 Mali’s provisional administration will restart blasting at Loulo–Gounkoto mine on October 15, four months after Bamako took control of the mining complex from Barrick amid a dispute over the new Mining code. 📉 Due to the prolonged dispute engendered by Barrick's unwillingness to comply with the new Mining code of 2023, Mali’s industrial gold output has fallen 32% year on year. 📑 This month the World Bank's arbitration court is expected to rule on the legitimacy of the provisional administration establishment. The latest developments look like a sign of Mali's resolve to go on running Loulo-Gounkoto without his majesty Barrick's highest consent. Devils Below

🇧🇼Botswana: 24% Home or Don’t Come 🌏 Botswana has started enforcing a 24% local ownershiprule fornew mining concessions. If the state chooses not to buy the stake itself, companies must sell 24% to local investors or firms. "Anyone who has two shirts should share at least 24% with the one who has none", Luke 3:11, if I'm not misspelling Botswana is not the first to introduce an obligatory local share for new enterprises: 👉 South Africa:30% under the Mining Charter for new mining rights 👉 Zimbabwe:51% in strategic minerals 👉 Ghana:10% government free carry in mineral rights. 👉 Tanzania:16% government free carry 👉Namibia:5–20% progressive by development stage. This further strenghens the trend towards local value creation and broader taxation of mining projects in the era of ever-rising commodity prices. By the way, this genuinely global trend also shows why accusing the some governments (e.g. Mali, Niger etc) of resource nationalism is nothing more than partisanship or inability to see the whole picture. Devils Below

📍 Hold The Gold When Mansa Musa passed through Cairo in 1324, he spent and gifted so much gold that local prices plunged for years. Africa still glitters, but, as we showed in our recent material of the continent's top gold miners, most industrial output is booked by foreign corporations. ❓ Today we decided to figure out who are the leaders in the quest for genuinely African gold production. Behold the top 10 African-founded gold producers: 👉Sibanye-Stillwater (South Africa): 705,00 oz/year (21,900 kg) 👉Centamin (Egyptian-founded): 470,000–500,000 oz/year (14,600–15,550 kg) 👉Nguvu Mining (Ghana): 250,000 oz/year (7,780 kg) 👉Pan African Resources (South Africa): 186,000 oz/year (5,790 kg) 👉MIDROC Gold (Ethiopia): 112,000–129,000 oz/year (3,490–4,000 kg) 👉Kuvimba Mining House (Zimbabwe): 116,000 oz/year (3,600 kg) 👉Ariab Mining Company (Sudan): 93,000 oz/year (2,900 kg) 👉Dallaglio Investments (Zimbabwe): 88,100 oz/year (2,740 kg) 👉Thor Explorations (founded by a Nigerian and Nigeria is the operating base): 85,000 oz/year (2,650 kg) 👉Shalateen Mineral Resources (Egypt): 29,200 oz (≈ 900 kg) With more countries pushing local refining there’s a real opening for African businesses to scale from pits to processing — and ensure that the next gold story isn’t just about who digs, but who spends creates the value. Devils Below

🇨🇩Gold Fever Reaches the DRC 🌏 The DRC's Central Bank has announced its plan to build up gold reserves. Despite producing over 40 tons of gold annually, the DRC has historically maintained virtually no official gold reserves. According to the Central Bank's recently appointed Head, "that will not only reinforce the franc but also permit the franc to be traded internationally because it will be backed by reserves in gold, above and beyond dollar reserves." 📍 Supposedly, to this end the Central Bank is planning to acquire the gold produced loclly, a strategy already in place in Burkina Faso, Nigeria and South Africa. However, the DRC does not have its own gold refineries (see the pic), which means that the Central Bank will have to purify purchased gold at its own expense somewhere abroad. 👁 Otherwise, in case of an economic emergency, the Central Bank may find itself buried under a mountain of 70% doré gold no one wants to buy. Devils Below

🇿🇼 From Ore to More: Zimbabwe Urges Internal Processing 🌏 Harare called for investments in internal mineral processing, pairing a crackdown on graft with tighter oversight of miners. “To the processors and off takers, the era of raw mineral exports must give way to beneficiation and value addition”, said Vice President Chiwengo Zimbabwe remains one of Africa’s most consistent and successful champions of domestic processing. Having imposed restrictions on raw lithium exports in 2022, Harare went on to ban as well the export of lithium concentrates (in force from 2027). 📈 Since the enactment of the first restrictions, 5 brand new facilities were constructed in Zimbabwe, which process lithium ore into concentrates. Devils Below