AU
Second Mali gold mine scores backing from former Olam exec
The family office of Indian businessman Gagan Gupta has agreed to fund a second gold mine in Mali, providing a boost to a government that’s been at loggerheads with mining investors in recent years.
Eagle Eye Asset Holdings Pte. Ltd. has struck a $120 million deal with Cora Gold Ltd. to support the development of the Sanankoro gold project in southern Mali. The Singapore-based firm is already backing the construction of a larger mine being built nearby by Toubani Resources Ltd.
Eagle Eye is doubling down on the West African nation, even as its military-led government has spent much of the past three years locked in disputes with foreign companies that own the country’s largest gold mines. Those rows centered on claims of alleged back taxes and revised legislation that hiked royalties and the state’s share in joint ventures. Mali is Africa’s second-largest producer of the precious metal, according to the World Gold Council.
While companies such as Resolute Mining Ltd. and B2Gold Corp. continued operating by reaching financial settlements with the authorities, the standoff with Barrick Mining Corp. – which runs the vast Loulo-Gounkoto mining complex – deteriorated to such an extent that the Canadian firm temporarily lost control of the asset last year
Gupta is the founder and chief executive of Arise Integrated and Industrial Platforms, an operator of industrial parks that’s active in more than a dozen African countries. A former Olam Group Ltd. executive, his businesses are ramping up investment in mining and minerals processing ventures across Africa, including Sierra Leone’s first commercial gold mine, a bauxite project in Cameroon, copper exploration in Zambia and an iron ore mine in the Republic of Congo.
Eagle Eye — which is owned by Gupta’s family office – will fund Sanankoro through a streaming deal entitling the company to purchase about 30% of future gold production for 20% of the prevailing spot price, London-listed Cora said on Friday. The arrangement should “materially accelerate” the construction timeline once permits are secured, the statement said.
In October, the same investor agreed to be a major financier of Australia-based Toubani’s $216 million Kobada project, which is expected to enter production next year and targeting output of 162,000 ounces a year.
Eagle Eye is the top shareholder in both companies, owning 29.9% of Cora and 33.8% of Toubani.
(By William Clowes)
US imposes sanctions on Nicaraguan officials linked to gold sector
The US Treasury Department on Thursday imposed sanctions on a number of individuals and companies that operate in Nicaragua’s gold sector, including two sons of the country’s co-presidents.
Another of the individuals sanctioned is Santiago Hernan Bermudez Tapia, Nicaragua’s vice minister of energy and mines, the Treasury Department said in a statement. A number of companies were also sanctioned that the US said had been complicit in helping the Nicaraguan government generate money from gold and maintain political control.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Nicaraguan government, led by Rosario Murillo and her husband Daniel Ortega, had sought to fill its own coffers by “confiscating American investments” in the country.
“The United States will not allow the illicit confiscation of American-owned assets and will continue to target revenue streams that empower the corrupt Murillo-Ortega regime,” he said.
Washington, under both the current and former Republican Trump administrations and the prior Democratic Biden administration, has been using economic and diplomatic means to pressure Managua to reform, dating back to a violent crackdown that began in April 2018 following mass demonstrations.
The United Nations last year accused dozens of officials from Ortega’s government of serious human rights violations and crimes, in what it described as a “tightly coordinated system of repression” following the protests.
Treasury said the sanctions imposed on Thursday stemmed from the 2025 occupation and forcible seizure of the gold processing site of BHMB Mining Nicaragua SA, a Nicaraguan company founded in 2019 with foreign investment from a US company.
It said high-ranking members of the Murillo-Ortega government had benefited from Nicaragua’s increase in gold exports in recent years as well as actions by state-owned Empresa Nicaraguense de Minas to funnel profits to “private sector partners and kickbacks to regime insiders.”
Treasury said its Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on two of the ruling couple’s sons: Maurice Facundo Ortega Murillo, who serves as the Nicaraguan presidential delegate for sports, and Daniel Edmundo Ortega Murillo, who heads the country’s Communication and Citizenship Council.
Among others sanctioned on Thursday were: the president of Zhong Fu, one of the companies involved in the seizure of BHMB assets; Santa Rita Mining Co., which was granted land concessions for mineral extraction; and Nicaragua-based Exportadora de Metales Sociedad Anonima, which sells gold to the US, with the profits possibly used to fund government-linked paramilitary groups, Treasury said.
Grupo Minero Xiloa SA, was also sanctioned, Treasury said, accusing it of using the US financial system to legitimize illicit funds and using the proceeds to finance the government’s political machinery.
No comment was immediately available from the companies or individuals listed.
(By Andrea Shalal; Editing by Daphne Psaledakis and Rosalba O’Brien)
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