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President Bassirou Diomaye Faye directed the government to finalise and adopt a new Mining Code before year-end 2025, publicly signalling the intent in the Council of Ministers session of November 12, 2025. The code came into force on or around 1 January 2026 (confirmed by the official Primature publications page and code.droit.org edition dating).
The new code replaces the 2016 framework (Loi n°2016-32 du 8 novembre 2016) with a sovereignty-oriented architecture across five pillars:
1. State equity: increased free-carried interest and participating interest for the state in all mining exploitation companies. The exact percentage uplift vs. the 2016 code is subject to gazette confirmation — filers should cross-reference the law number and JORS (Journal Officiel de la République du Sénégal) entry when available.
2. Local content: mandatory requirements strengthened across processing, employment, and procurement. Local beneficiation (in-country processing of gold, phosphate, zircon) is explicitly targeted as a sovereignty instrument.
3. Royalty and revenue capture: stricter royalty provisions aligned with the WAEMU Règlement N°02/2023/CM/UEMOA (Community Mining Code, June 2023), which sets regional royalty floors for all 8 WAEMU member states including Senegal. The new code's royalty regime must be at least as demanding as WAEMU minimums.
4. Community development: enhanced Community Development Plan obligations — minimum contribution thresholds now codified (specific rates in gazette text; likely % of gross revenue following WAEMU template).
5. Enforcement basis for licence revocations: the new code's reinvigorated sovereignty provisions create the legal predicate for the March 2026 National Commission review that flagged 71 mining licences for revocation or renegotiation (filed separately as 2026-03-12-senegal-primature-petroleum-mining-contract-renegotiation).
Senegal's mineral production is modest in global scale but growing:
Kharakhena and Boto deposits in development)
by government for re-activation under revised terms
traded company) face renegotiated state participation terms on permit renewals.
legitimised by the new code's sovereignty architecture — responds_to relationship is bidirectional: the National Commission findings (2026-03-12 action) are the enforcement expression of the new code's legal mandate.
N°02/2023/CM/UEMOA framework (also being filed separately) — Senegal's national royalties cannot fall below WAEMU floor rates.
pressure but phosphate's low unit value makes domestic beneficiation economics challenging.
République du Sénégal. The primature.sn publications page hosts the official text but did not surface a specific law number in searches conducted June 2026.
state in mining exploitation companies. Whether the 2026 code raises this (to 15–20% in line with WAEMU regional trends) requires gazette confirmation.
2019 Code Pétrolier and the renegotiation process now underway (2026-03-12 action).
orpaillage (artisanal gold) is unconfirmed from available secondary sources.