Congo Courts Trump for Strategic Minerals Tie-Up as War Looms
March 5th, 2025
Via Bloomberg, a report that The Democratic Republic of Congo has offered the US exclusive access to critical minerals and infrastructure projects in exchange for security assistance as it battles a rebellion backed by neighboring Rwanda: The Democratic Republic of Congo has offered the US exclusive access to critical minerals and infrastructure projects in exchange […]
Read more »Trump Aid Freeze Risks $1 Billion African Minerals Project
February 18th, 2025
Via Bloomberg, an article on how an expansion of the US’s biggest strategic critical-minerals project in Africa is at risk: A billion-dollar expansion of the biggest US strategic critical-minerals project in Africa faces delays because of the Trump administration’s sweeping foreign-aid freeze, providing a potential opening for rivals like China. The Lobito corridor railway project […]
Read more »DRC-Rwanda: Rubaya Coltan Mine at the Heart of M23 Financing
February 7th, 2025
Courtesy of The Africa Report, a look at how a coltan mine is integral to M23 funding: In April 2024, Rwandan-backed armed group M23 seized one of the world’s most productive coltan concessions, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Since then, a UN report estimates that 120 tonnes of the precious mineral are mined every […]
Read more »PGI’s Lobito Corridor Rail Network to Unlock African Copper Belt
January 17th, 2025
Via Fast Markets, an article on how Africa’s first transcontinental rail network, known as the Lobito Corridor, which aims to eventually connect almost the entire regional copper-cobalt belt with additional links across sub-Saharan Africa, is on track to break ground early in 2026: The project will link Angola and Zambia by rail for the first […]
Read more »DRC Courts Saudi Investment To Help Curb Chinese Mining Dominance
January 17th, 2025
Via Reuters, a report on Congo’s efforts to court Saudi mining investors to help curb China dominance in the sector: The Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s top cobalt supplier, is courting new mining investors from Saudi Arabia to help it diversify and curb overreliance on companies from China, Marcellin Paluku, a senior government official, […]
Read more »DRC: Apple Using ‘Conflict Minerals’
December 22nd, 2024
Via the BBC, a report on the DRC’s accusation that Apple is using conflict minerals in its products: The Democratic Republic of Congo has filed criminal complaints in France and Belgium against subsidiaries of the tech giant Apple, accusing it of using conflict minerals. Acting on behalf of the Congolese government, lawyers have argued that […]
Read more »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.