KoBold Metals, a California-based metals exploration company backed by billionaires including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, said it has discovered a vast copper deposit in Zambia.
The rare discovery of a large-scale copper deposit could help in the global race to secure a supply of materials critical to the energy transition. Copper is in high demand due to its use in renewable energy and electric vehicles.
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A Canadian-owned gold mine in central Africa has emerged as a key source of financing for Russia’s global military operations, leaving its owners fighting for compensation.
Four years after its biggest African gold mine was seized by Russian mercenaries, Vancouver-based Axmin Inc. is seeking a cash settlement and a possible share of the mine’s royalties from the government of the Central African Republic (CAR), which allegedly allowed the mercenaries to grab the mine.
Nations desperate for Africa’s minerals, writes Frank Giustra, should find a way to compete with China’s investments in the continent.
“The new scramble for resources on the continent offers an opportunity for Africa to reset its relations with more powerful external actors. Africa’s wealth of critical minerals will be essential to help the world achieve its energy transition. In return, African leaders should negotiate smart deals that ensure the continent draws just recompense for the minerals on its soil — and ensure those benefits are spread evenly to its citizens.”
Dr. Comfort Ero, president and CEO, the International Crisis Group
… The world is already facing an enormous deficit in minerals for our future needs, but with the transition to clean energy, the projected deficit will be almost impossible to fulfil.
Risk aversion is likely to leave major Western miners lagging in a race to tap Africa’s reserves of critical raw materials that has gathered pace now Middle Eastern oil powers have begun to emulate China’s years of investment on the continent.
Attracting the capital needed to advance copper, cobalt, nickel and lithium projects in Africa will be high on the agenda when executives, bankers and government officials gather in Cape Town, South Africa, for the annual African Mining Indaba beginning on Monday.
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30 years after apartheid, South Africans are angry about power cuts, poor public services, corruption and economic stagnation – and the ruling ANC risks getting punished for it all at the polls
At the site where the Freedom Charter was proclaimed, the memorial flame is broken and extinguished. The metal around its doorways has been stripped away by thieves. Buildings nearby are gutted and looted, their windows and doors stolen.
The Freedom Charter, written by anti-apartheid leaders in 1955, was the eloquent document that inspired South Africa’s liberation struggle. “The people shall govern!” it declared. When white-minority rule was finally defeated, the charter formed the basis for much of the country’s first democratic constitution.
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — An unregulated gold mine collapsed late last week in Mali, killing more than 70 people, an official said Wednesday, and a search continued amid fears that the toll could rise. Karim Berthé, a senior official at the government’s National Geology and Mining Directorate, confirmed the details to The Associated Press and called it an accident.
There were around 100 people in the mine at the time of the collapse, according to Abdoulaye Pona, president of the Mali Chamber of Mines, who was at the scene.
(Bloomberg) — Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces group is using large-scale proceeds from gold mining to fund its devastating war against the nation’s army, according to United Nations investigators.
The UN report also described as “credible” allegations that the United Arab Emirates has helped supply the RSF via neighboring Chad, citing local witnesses — something the Gulf nation denies. And it said violence by the RSF and allied militias may have killed as many as 15,000 people in one city in the Darfur region in 2023 — a figure that would outstrip the UN’s previous toll for the entire nine-month conflict.
China’s interest and influence continue to grow in countries across Africa. Beijing buys political support and access to raw materials with major infrastructure investments.
For 34 years, the first foreign trip of the year has always taken the Chinese foreign minister to Africa. This week, Wang Yi visited Egypt, Tunisia, Togo and Ivory Coast before traveling on to South America. In addition to the crisis in the Middle East, his agenda included economic cooperation and civil society exchange.
Africa is playing an increasingly important role for China, which is hungry for energy and raw materials. After World War II, communist China cultivated intensive cooperation with African countries. Beijing fraternized and positioned itself as a spokesperson for these underdeveloped countries, which later would become part of what is now called the “Global South.”
(Bloomberg) — China’s battery industry has seized on a glut in the global cobalt market to push through a change in the way the commodity is priced.
A rapid expansion of cobalt mining in Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia has output racing ahead of demand, dragging down global prices. It’s also prompted a push by squeezed Chinese refineries to win changes in how cobalt is bought and sold.
Amidst the smoldering wreckage of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane, it appeared that Wagner Group would suffer without its senior leadership, putting its African projects in jeopardy. Yet, Russia is stepping up in Africa after the demise of Prigozhin. What will it mean for West Africa, a region plagued by ethnic violence and a recent rash of juntas, remains to be seen.
Russia’s behavior increasingly looks like competition with the West, whether it may be clashing with Ukrainian special forces in Sudan, engaging in diplomatic and intelligence operations in Burkina Faso, and alleged US strikes on Russian aircraft in Libya. Russia is even picking up where the West left off in Mali, becoming the new target of jihadist forces there.
Rio Tinto hopes $20bn Guinea iron ore, rail and port plan will pave way for ‘new era’ of mining
The world’s biggest mining project, a $20bn iron ore, rail and port development in a remote corner of west Africa, is expected to start this year after a 27-year wait beset by setbacks, scandals and several false dawns.
UK-listed Rio Tinto first secured an exploration licence in the Simandou mountains in south-eastern Guinea, 550km from the coastal capital, in 1997. Since then the country of 13mn people has had two coups d’état, four heads of state and three presidential elections.
MBOMBELA, South Africa—A half-century-old company on the outskirts of South Africa’s Kruger National Park has found itself in a fortuitous spot as Western automakers push to move their electric-vehicle supply chains away from China.
Manganese Metal Co., based in the sleepy town of Mbombela, is the largest of just a handful of refiners of battery-grade manganese located outside China. Used mostly for making steel, manganese is increasingly replacing more expensive and harder-to-source minerals such as cobalt and nickel in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars, smartphones and laptops.
The country is at a pivotal point in its diamond journey, with the new deal between De Beers and the government seen as a catalyst for growth.
Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi paused for a moment after stepping up to the podium to address the annual Natural Diamond Summit in Gaborone.
As he looked through the marquee venue, aptly known as the Diamond Dome, with its intentionally earthy décor, Masisi appeared measured. The speech he was about to give was his first major address to a broader De Beers-organized audience since the government announced its landmark deal with the company on June 30.
Security firm Bancroft Global Development is looking to manage mining sites in the Central African Republic (CAR), following a push by Washington for the former French colony to stop relying on Russian-backed Wagner mercenaries, it has been reported.
Radio France International (RFI) said that delegates from the U.S-based firm had been talking with the CAR over providing trained, equipped units to protect sites in the country where armed groups operate.
The Kremlin has laundered $2.5 billion of African gold since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a report by an international group of researchers and human rights activists published on Dec. 12.
Russia’s illicit activities and ties to authoritarian regimes in Africa have been under the public eye for years. Russian mercenaries on the continent, whose operations help to fill Moscow’s coffers, have been repeatedly accused of human rights abuses against local populations.
