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The two decrees were adopted at the ordinary session of the Council of Ministers on 4 March 2026, chaired by President Alassane Ouattara. Each decree grants a 4-year exploration permit under Article 8 of Loi n° 2014-138 du 24 mars 2014 portant Code minier, the primary licensing statute.
Permit 1 — Stargate Atlantis Minerals SARL:
hosts the Adansi/Yaoure lithium discoveries in neighbouring Ghana and Mali
Permit 2 — Ivoire Lithium Resources SARL (ILR SARL):
drilling results (Lithium Africa Corp., TSX-V: LAF), suggesting early-stage but material lithium intercepts in the Lagunes terrain
Both permits require compliance with technical and environmental conditions specified in the Ministry of Mines' permit conditions.
1. First lithium-specific policy action for Côte d'Ivoire — the four prior CI actions cover the 2014 Mining Code (framework), the 2022 Local Content Law (petroleum/gas), the Dec 2024 Finance Act gold royalty increase, and the Dec 2025 PIRME integrated minerals-energy strategy. None covers lithium exploration rights; these decrees fill that gap.
2. Africa #1 exploration jurisdiction materialising its pipeline — per World Exploration Trends 2026 report, Côte d'Ivoire attracted USD 186M in mining exploration investment in 2025, ranking first on the African continent. The March 2026 lithium decrees are the first operational output of that ranking — converting exploration investment flows into specific lithium acreage commitments.
3. Operationalises the PIRME December 2025 mandate — the Politique Intégrée pour les Ressources Minières et Énergétiques (PIRME, filed 2025-12-03) committed CI to leveraging its geological endowment for energy-transition minerals. Lithium exploration permits are the first concession- level actions consistent with that mandate.
4. Birimian greenstone context — Côte d'Ivoire sits on the West African Craton's Birimian supergroup, which hosts lithium-bearing pegmatites across a 600 km belt spanning Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The Mankono–Kani–Dianra zone (Permit 1) shares the same geological fabric as Mali's Bougouni and Ghana's Ewoyaa spodumene discoveries, suggesting genuine exploration prospectivity rather than speculative licence-holding.
5. Spodumene processing absence — as with most West African frontier lithium plays, no downstream spodumene-to-lithium-hydroxide conversion capacity exists in-country. If exploration succeeds, concentrate exports to China, Europe, or the US will be the near-term offtake path; PIRME's local-processing mandate will apply tension to that trajectory.
intercepts, this will catalyse increased foreign exploration commitments in south-east CI.
resource announcement + prefeasibility study.
willing to enforce in-country processing obligations; CI's PIRME local-processing language should be monitored for enforcement precedents.
communiqué text — filer to retrieve from Journal Officiel de la République de Côte d'Ivoire when available)