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Africa Mining

Barrick facing uncertainty in Mali, amid reports of regime seeking control of mine – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – April 15, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. is facing mounting pressure in Mali as the country’s military regime seeks to boost its control of the multibillion-dollar mining sector at a time of growing Russian influence over its economy.

Mali’s junta, which seized power in a coup in 2021 and later forged an alliance with Russian troops, has been targeting the mining sector for more than a year with a controversial audit of the industry and a new mining code to authorize greater state control of mining companies.

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US must boost Africa ties to secure key minerals, report says – by Felix Njini (Reuters – April 9, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

JOHANNESBURG/WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) – The U.S. must boost commercial ties with African countries to curb reliance on China for supplies of critical minerals, a Washington-based think tank said on Tuesday.

“U.S. economic and national security depend on securing a reliable supply of critical minerals, including from Africa,” the United States Institute of Peace said in a report.

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How illegal mining is threatening imperiled lemurs – by Paul Tullis (National Geographic – March 19, 2019)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/

A rush for Madagascar’s gemstones is exacerbating destruction of critical wildlife habitat.

AMBATONDRAZAKA, MADAGASCAR — Indris, at two feet tall the largest of Madagascar’s lemurs, are big sleepers. The primates awaken two or three hours after sunrise, forage for leaves high in the canopy during the day (amid frequent naps), and choose their spot for the night well before dark.

On our trek into the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor, a protected area known by its French acronym, CAZ, photographer Adriane Ohanesian, translator-guide Safidy Andrianantenaina, and I often heard their calls. The sound, a bit like someone blowing a trombone for the first time, can carry up to a mile through the dense forest.

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Why Taking Over Africa Is a Key Part of Beijing’s Silent War Against America (The Epoch Times – April 7, 2024)

https://www.theepochtimes.com/

China’s influence over the lives of Africa’s 1.5 billion people is now so broad it includes food production, resource mining, and military leadership schools.

JOHANNESBURG—China’s influence in and over the lives of Africa’s 1.5 billion people is now so broad that it extends into almost all aspects of African societies.

The communist regime’s footprint is stamped across the continent in almost all economic sectors, including agriculture, natural resources, and trade and logistics. Chinese companies are deeply invested in manufacturing, services, and real estate.

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Russia and West join forces to tackle trade in ‘blood diamonds’ despite feud over Moscow’s diamonds – by Edith M. Lederer (Associated Press – April 4, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States and its Western allies are feuding with Russia over its diamond production, but they joined forces Wednesday to keep supporting the Kimberley Process, which aims to eliminate the trade in “blood diamonds” that helped fuel devastating conflicts in Africa.

At a U.N. General Assembly meeting, its 193 member nations adopted a resolution by consensus recognizing that the Kimberley Process, which certifies rough diamond exports, “contributes to the prevention of conflicts fueled by diamonds” and helps the Security Council implement sanctions on the trade in conflict diamonds.

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Mining for EV Metals Threatens Gorillas and Chimpanzees in Africa – by Laura Millan (Bloomberg News – April 3, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A third of Africa’s gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees are at risk because they live in areas that overlap with mining operations for metals critical to the global clean energy transition.

Nearly 180,000 great apes in Africa are under threat as mining activities drive deforestation, according to a study published on Wednesday in Science Advances. The true impact might be even higher because mining companies are not required to make biodiversity data public, the researchers wrote.

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The Sahel’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ – by Pepe Escobar (The Cradle – April 1, 2024)

https://thecradle.co/

The African Sahel is revolting against western neocolonialism – ejecting foreign troops and bases, devising alternative currencies, and challenging the old multinationals. Multipolarity, after all, cannot flower without resistance paving its path.

The emergence of Axes of Resistance in various geographies is an inextricable byproduct of the long and winding process leading us toward a multipolar world. These two things – resistance to the Hegemon and the emergence of multipolarity – are absolutely complementary.

The Axis of Resistance in West Asia – across Arab and Muslim states – now finds as its soul sister the Axis of Resistance spanning the Sahel in Africa, west to east, from Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea.

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Barrick settles lawsuit with Tanzanian villagers who alleged security abuses – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – March 29, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold Corp. says its subsidiaries have settled a British court case with 10 Tanzanian villagers who alleged that police and security guards had caused deaths and injuries near the company’s North Mara gold mine.

The two subsidiaries in Tanzania did not admit any liability in the case at the High Court of Justice in London, Barrick said in a terse one-sentence statement on its website this week. It gave no other details.

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How Gulf states are putting their money into mining – by Harry Dempsey and Chloe Cornish (Financial Times – March 31, 2024)

https://www.ft.com/

Hungry to diversify their economies beyond fossil fuels, Middle Eastern powers are investing in the resources needed to produce clean energy

In the summer of 2023, Rothschild bankers working for Zambia’s government were close to finalising a shortlist of buyers for a prized copper mine.

Mopani, a troubled but rare asset formerly owned by resources giant Glencore, had drawn offers worth hundreds of millions of dollars from big names in the mining world eager to gain access to a metal that is crucial to clean energy technologies of the future.

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Gemfields warns of $2.8 million loss on write-down – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – March 22, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Precious gemstones miner Gemfields (LON: GEM) warned on Friday that it expects to swing to a loss of $2.8 million in 2023 from a $74.3 million profit the previous year due to a write-down in its platinum group metals investments, lower output and the cancellation of an emerald auction.

The London-based company, which has a 6.54% stake in South African platinum group miner Sedibelo Resources, said that plummeting prices for platinum group metals (PGMs) has affected its bottom line.

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G7 Sanctions Will Harm Botswana’s Diamond Development, Officials Say – Avi Krawitz (Rapaport Magazine – March 20, 2024)

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The Group of Seven (G7) import restrictions targeting Russian diamonds will have a detrimental impact on Botswana’s diamond trade and may reverse the gains the country has made in recent years, government officials told Rapaport News.

The proposal to create a single-node location through which all diamonds should pass to verify G7 compliance would be a logistical nightmare for producer countries, Lefoko Moagi, Botswana’s minister of mineral resources, green technology, and energy security, said in an interview. “It creates added time in terms of processing our diamonds and it affects our beneficiation trajectory,” Moagi explained. “This may bring about added costs and unintended consequences that will affect the producer countries.”

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Barrick shuts down water supply after uranium found at copper mine in Zambia – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – March 20, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Barrick Gold says it has found uranium in the drinking water of an open section of its Lumwana copper mine in Zambia, forcing it to halt the water supply and switch to other water sources for its workers in the section.

The Zambian mine has become increasingly important to Barrick’s future. The Toronto-based company has announced plans for a US$2-billion expansion at Lumwana to create one of the world’s biggest copper mines, with construction to begin late this year and production from the project expected by 2028.

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The dilemma: How can Africa industrialise and reach net zero? (Mining Technology – March 20, 2024)

https://www.mining-technology.com/

Africa’s greatest challenge is how to industrialise but not increase carbon emissions significantly at the same time – otherwise, hundreds of millions of people will be condemned to a life of poverty. The whole of Africa accounts for only 2–3% of the world’s CO2 emissions from energy and industrial sources, according to the UN.

It is roughly the same proportion as Germany and a lot lower than China (27%), the US (15%) and India (7%). Africa’s per capita emissions of CO2 were 0.76 tonnes (t) in 2018 compared with 4.4t globally, according to the World Bank (in the US it was 15.52t and in Australia 17t). Africa’s total population is around 1.3 billion people compared with China’s 1.4 billion, but China’s total carbon emissions are ten to 14 times higher than Africa’s.

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Global Atomic plunges as Niger’s junta expels US troops – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – March 19, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Shares in Global Atomic (TSX: GLO) have dropped nearly a third since the military rulers of Niger, where the company is developing its Dasa uranium project, vowed on the weekend to kick out United States troops that have been there more than a decade.

By Tuesday afternoon, stock in the Toronto-based company had fallen 29% since Friday to $2.21 apiece, valuing Global Atomic at $462.7 million. It was as low as $2.03 on Tuesday and has traded in a 52-week range of $1.28 to $3.91.

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African Development Bank chief criticizes opaque loans tied to Africa’s natural resources – by Taiwo Adebayo (Associated Press – March 12, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — The head of the African Development Bank is calling for an end to loans given in exchange for the continent’s rich supplies of oil or critical minerals used in smartphones and electric car batteries, deals that have helped China gain control over mineral mining in places like Congo and have left some African countries in financial crisis.

“They are just bad, first and foremost, because you can’t price the assets properly,” Akinwumi Adesina said in an interview with The Associated Press in Lagos, Nigeria, last week. “If you have minerals or oil under the ground, how do you come up with a price for a long-term contract? It’s a challenge.”

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