Archive for July, 2023

Move Over Dubai. This Tiny Emirate Wants to Be the Next Haven for Billionaires

Courtesy of Bloomberg, a report on how Ras Al Khaimah looks to lure rich from around the world From the top of the RAK International Corporate Centre, foreign tycoons can catch a glimpse of a city transforming.  A long stretch of desert lies toward the north. Luxury villas dot the Persian Gulf coast to the […]

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How Wagner Teamed up with the CAR’s Diamond Mafia

Courtesy of The Africa Report, a look at how the Wagner group has taken control of the Central African diamond sector: A stone’s throw away, the river Kotto flows slowly, waiting to empty into the Oubangui, situated nearly 200km further south on the border with DRC. A little further on, on the ochre laterite road […]

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In Iraq and Algeria, TotalEnergies Signs Major Deals

Via Al Monitor, an article on new deals between Iraq and TotalEnergies that aim to help Iraq fix its longstanding power issues: French energy giant TotalEnergies has signed major deals with Algeria and Iraq in the past two days. Iraq’s Ministry of Oil and TotalEnergies signed a long-delayed $27 billion deal aimed at developing Iraq’s energy sector. […]

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UAE Secures Rights to DRC Gold Exports for 25 Years

Via Middle East Monitor, a report on a recent agreement between the DRC and UAE for export rights to locally extracted gold: The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has signed an agreement which gives a company in the UAE exclusive export rights of locally extracted gold for 25 years as well as […]

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East Africa: Leveraging Natural Proximity to India, China, and the Gulf

The recently released report by McKinsey & Company on reimagining economic growth in Africa offers a wealth of valuable insights and analyses. However, one aspect that I believe received insufficient attention in the report is the positioning and integration of different clusters of countries, particularly in relation to their global market geography. One striking observation […]

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How the West Can Forestall Green OPECs

Courtesy of Semafor, commentary on how the West could head off the creation of new OPEC-like producer cartels for critical resources such as lithium by inviting mineral-rich Latin American and African nations to join the existing Minerals Security Partnership (MSP): Western countries should head off the creation of new OPEC-like producer cartels for critical resources […]

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WILDCATS AND BLACK SHEEP
Wildcats & Black Sheep is a personal interest blog dedicated to the identification and evaluation of maverick investment opportunities arising in frontier - and, what some may consider to be, “rogue” or “black sheep” - markets around the world.

Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.