Mali Loi n° 2023-040 du 29 août 2023 portant Code Minier en République du Mali

Mechanism

Loi n° 2023-040 of 29 August 2023 is the foundational statute of Mali's current mining-investment regime. It was adopted by the Conseil National de Transition (CNT) — the junta-appointed legislature that replaced the elected Assemblée Nationale after the August 2020 and May 2021 coups — and promulgated by Président de la Transition Colonel Assimi Goïta on the same date. The law was published in the Journal Officiel de la République du Mali and repealed Ordonnance n° 2019-022/P-RM du 27 septembre 2019 (the prior Code Minier).

Headline structural provisions

1. Special regime for substances minérales d'intérêt stratégique The 2023 Code creates a dedicated permitting and state-priority framework for seven designated strategic minerals: lithium, uranium, thorium, tungsten, tantalite, cobalt, and rare-earth elements (formally defined in the companion Décret n° 2024-0396/PT-RM of July 2024). Articles 42-44 grant the state priority in mineral-title allocation for these substances. In practice this means the state (via state-owned vehicles) has first right of refusal on any new permit in strategic-mineral-bearing geology before private bidding.

2. Zones d'intérêt stratégique The Code empowers the government to designate geographic areas as zones d'intérêt stratégique reserved exclusively for the state and state-controlled vehicles. No private-sector permits may be granted within such zones. This is the legal mechanism for ring-fencing high-priority geology from foreign capital.

3. 35% Malian-side equity floor (three-tranche structure)

• 10% free-carry to the state upon grant of any exploitation permit

(no acquisition cost; comparable to Zimbabwe's 10% free-carry under the 2023 lithium framework and DRC's cession gratuite under the revised Mining Code)

• 20% paid-participation option for the state or state-mandated investor

within the first two years of commercial production, at market value (up from an acquisition option under the 2019 code)

• 5% reserved for Malian private investors — allocated separately from

the state tranche; intended to build domestic mining-investment capacity

The aggregate 35% ceiling is up from the prior 20% Malian-side share under the 2019 Ordonnance, a material repricing of the dilution ceiling for foreign-capital-led mining projects.

4. Reinforced state oversight and convention-review authority The Code grants the state strengthened audit and review powers over existing mining conventions, enabling renegotiation of legacy fiscal arrangements on the basis that prior regimes undercollected. This provision is the statutory underpinning for the post-2023 wave of state-initiated audits (Mali Audit Office + Ministry of Economy and Finance) that preceded the Barrick Loulo-Gounkoto dispute and B2Gold Fekola settlement.

5. Mining-title typology overhaul The Code refactors Mali's licence architecture: prospection, recherche, exploitation industrielle, exploitation à petite échelle, exploitation artisanale, exploitation des haldes et terrils, and autorisations spéciales. The convention-minière framework (large-scale mine agreements between the state and titulaires) is restructured with clearer negotiation timelines and stronger government walk-away rights.

6. Fiscal architecture integration Royalties, surface taxes, and mining taxes are integrated with the annual Loi de Finances (budget law), allowing the government to adjust rates through the annual appropriations process rather than requiring standalone legislative amendments. This gives the fiscal regime more political flexibility to capture commodity-cycle upside.

7. Malian-content, employment, and sub-contractor obligations Operator duties to prioritise Malian nationals, sub-contractors, and suppliers — paired with the companion Loi n° 2023-041 (local-content law of the same date) which operationalises the procurement-priority architecture.

Downstream implications

• Mali gold sector — Mali is West Africa's #2 gold producer (≈60+ t/yr).

The 2023 Code, once operationalised by the 2024 implementing decree, raises the state take and creates renegotiation leverage on all legacy conventions. The Barrick Loulo-Gounkoto standoff (gold-export blockage + executive detentions from late 2024) is the flagship investor-risk case study. B2Gold and Allied Gold have reached renegotiated settlements with material concessions.

• Mali lithium sector — The Goulamina spodumene project (Ganfeng

Lithium 65% / Mali state + local investors 30% + 5%), which produced its first commercial spodumene in late 2024 at ≈506,000 t/yr LCE Phase 1 capacity, operates under a prior convention. The 2023 Code's strategic- mineral designation for lithium means any future expansion or new permit is subject to the tighter state-priority framework.

• AES resource-nationalism contagion — The 2023 Code is the leading

template in the Alliance des États du Sahel (AES, formed 16 September 2023: Mali + Burkina Faso + Niger) resource-nationalism cluster. Burkina Faso adopted its own mining-code rewrite in July 2024 (Loi N°016-2024/ALT), and Niger revoked the Imouraren uranium permit in June 2024. The AES trio is structurally aligned on: (i) raising state equity floors, (ii) designating strategic-mineral reservations, (iii) using audit/review powers to renegotiate legacy conventions.

• Chinese supply-chain consolidation — Ganfeng Lithium's ownership of

Goulamina (after Leo Lithium exit in 2024) under terms that accept ≈35% Malian-side share is the reference case for how Chinese mining capital is more willing than Western capital to absorb EM equity-floor mandates. The China willingness to accept these terms at Goulamina + DRC + Argentina accelerates FEOC concentration in lithium refining.

• ETF impact — GDX/GDXJ: reprices the equity-NPV of any West African

gold asset with Mali exposure. LIT: Goulamina sovereign risk premium is modest given Ganfeng's prior absorption of similar terms elsewhere.

Lineage

The 2023 Code Minier is the parent statute of a three-tier filing cluster:

1. This action — Loi n° 2023-040 (parent statute, 29 August 2023) 2. 2023-08-29-mali-loi-2023-041-contenu-local-minier — Companion local-content law (same date) 3. 2024-07-09-mali-decret-2024-0396-code-minier-implementing-decree — Implementing decree (9 July 2024) — the operative trigger for downstream investor disputes

Additionally, 2025-06-16-mali-loulo-gounkoto-provisional-state-administration exercises authority conferred by this Code's state-control provisions.

Open questions

• Whether the AES economic coordination produces a harmonised mining code

across Mali / Burkina Faso / Niger (which would lock in a unified resource-nationalism regime across the West African gold and uranium belt).

• Whether the Barrick arbitration filing — if pursued — successfully

challenges the retroactive application of the 2023 Code's convention-review provisions to pre-2023 agreements.

• Whether the 5% Malian private-investor tranche is genuinely allocated to

arms-length domestic capital or recycles to politically-connected vehicles (FCPA / UK Bribery Act risk vector for Western operators).