Côte d'Ivoire Presidential Decrees — 19-Year Assafou-Didibango and 14-Year Doropo Gold Exploitation Permits

Mechanism

Presidential decrees are the instrument used under Côte d'Ivoire's 2014 Mining Code (Loi 2014-138) to grant large-scale industrial exploitation licences. The Council of Ministers adopts the decrees; signature by the President is the formal grant of title. The two 4 February 2026 decrees clear the final regulatory hurdle for construction to proceed at both projects.

Assafou-Didibango (Endeavour Mining / AMPELLA MINING CÔTE D'IVOIRE SARL)

• Permit duration: 19 years
• Investment: CFA 451.31 billion (~USD 750M)
• Annual gold production: 7.99 tonnes average
• Total production: ~120 tonnes over permit life
• Employment: 251 direct construction jobs + 330 operational jobs
• Location: western Côte d'Ivoire
• Construction start: H2 2026 (per Endeavour schedule)

Doropo (Resolute Mining, ASX: RSG / AMPELLA MINING CÔTE D'IVOIRE SARL)

• Permit duration: 14 years
• Investment: ~CFA 310 billion (~USD 516M)
• Annual gold production: 6.43 tonnes average (≈207,000 oz/year)
• Total production: ~59 tonnes over permit life
• Location: north-eastern Côte d'Ivoire (~480 km north of Abidjan)
• Construction start: H1 2026 (Resolute approved FID alongside permit announcement)

Downstream implications

• Both permits expand Côte d'Ivoire's forward gold production pipeline materially.

The country produced ~58 t in 2024; combined new-mine output (~14.4 t/year at peak) adds ~25% to current run-rate and is consistent with the stated government ambition to reach 100 t/year by 2034.

• For Resolute Mining, Doropo was the last government gate before construction. The

permit announcement lifted the company's guided pathway to >500,000 oz/year total production by end-2028 (combining Syama, Mako, and Doropo).

• The decrees confirm that President Ouattara's administration is actively permitting

the next generation of large Western-operated gold projects — a contrast to the resource-nationalist permit-revocation arc playing out in neighbouring Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.

• Distinct from Côte d'Ivoire's simultaneously rising royalty environment: the

2025 Finance Law (gold royalty rate increase, filed as 2024-12-18-cote-divoire-loi-finances-2025-gold-royalty) raised the royalty rate, but the royalty change applies to all production — these exploitation permits are the development enablers, not the fiscal instrument.

Open questions

• Exact royalty and local-content terms embedded in each exploitation permit (not

disclosed in the public communiqué; governed by convention minière negotiated separately with the Ministry of Mines).

• Whether Assafou-Didibango proceeds on the H2 2026 construction timeline given

Endeavour's 2025 operational focus on existing producing assets.

• First gold pour timing for Doropo: H1 2026 construction start implies earliest

production ~2028; any slippage affects Resolute's 500k oz/year target.