Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The Council of Ministers of the Republic of Mali, presided over by General Assimi Goïta at Koulouba Palace, adopted on 6 February 2026 texts creating Société de Patrimoine Minier du Mali (SOPAMIM S.A.) — a wholly state-owned société anonyme charged with holding and managing all state participations in mining companies, implementing the 10% free-carry + optional 20% paid + 5% national-private participation architecture introduced by the 2023 Mining Code. SOPAMIM provides the single corporate vehicle through which renegotiated or newly-awarded state stakes in foreign-operated mines (including Barrick Gold Loulo-Gounkoto, B2Gold Fekola, Allied Gold Sadiola, Resolute Mining Syama, and Endeavour Mining Hounde-Mali) will be consolidated, operationalising the Code Minier's mandate for a *société de patrimoine* and closing the corporate-vehicle gap in Mali's AES/Sahel resource-nationalism architecture.

On 24 November 2025 Barrick Mining Corporation and the Government of Mali announced a comprehensive settlement resolving all disputes arising from the Loulo-Gounkoto gold complex, including the June 2025 provisional state administration order. Under the agreement Barrick commits to pay approximately USD 430 million (≈244 billion CFA francs) to Mali in cash and VAT-credit offsets, formally accedes to Mali's 2023 Mining Code (Loi 2023-040), and receives in exchange: cancellation of all charges against Barrick entities and personnel, release of four detained employees, return of three metric tons of previously seized gold (~USD 400 million), termination of the provisional administration, and a ten-year renewal of the Loulo mine permit (which had been set to expire in February 2026). Full operational control was restored to Barrick on 18 December 2025.

On 16 June 2025 the Tribunal de Commerce de Bamako issued an order placing Barrick Mining's Loulo-Gounkoto gold complex — one of the world's top-10 gold producers at ~720 koz/yr — under provisional state administration for six months, appointing expert-comptable Soumana Makadji as provisional administrator and tasking state mining holding SOREM-SA with operational oversight. Barrick immediately filed for ICSID arbitration and provisional measures. Operations restarted under state management in Q3 2025. A negotiated settlement dated 24 November 2025 saw Barrick pay approximately USD 430 million to Mali to resolve all disputes; provisional administration was terminated and full operational control returned to Barrick in December 2025.

On 27 January 2018 the DRC National Assembly adopted Loi n° 18/001, comprehensively amending the foundational 2002 Mining Code (Loi n° 007/2002); President Joseph Kabila promulgated the law on 9 March 2018, published in the Journal Officiel special issue of 28 March 2018, with implementing Décret n° 18/024 (Règlement Minier) following on 8 June 2018. The Code introduces a 10% royalty on minerals designated "strategic" by the Council of Ministers — cobalt, coltan, lithium, and germanium confirmed — up from the 2% standard non-ferrous rate, and raises all standard mining royalties (non-ferrous 2→3.5%, precious metals 2.5→3.5%, precious stones 4→6%). The state's mandatory free-carry interest in new mining projects is doubled from 5% to 10% (Article 71), with a further 10% paid-carry option creating an effective 20% state-participation floor; contract-stability guarantees are simultaneously curtailed from 10 to 5 years (Article 276), explicitly invalidating pre-existing stabilisation clauses. As the foundational statute governing every DRC mining-rights grant, royalty-rate setting, and export-control delegation, the 2018 Code is the parent authority for ARECOMS (established 2019 under its strategic-minerals framework) and the legal basis for both the 2025 cobalt export-ban/quota regime and the 2025 artisanal-processing suspension — making it the mandatory upstream context for the entire filed DRC action cluster.