Resource nationalism
A policy of producer states seeking to capture a larger share of the value of their natural resources: higher royalties, revised mining codes, bans on raw ore exports, mandatory state stakes.
When commodity prices rise or minerals become strategic, the states that hold them seek to get more out of them. Resource nationalism takes graduated forms. The mildest are fiscal: higher royalties, new windfall taxes. Next come the revision of mining codes and renegotiation of agreements, which change after the fact the balance of a long-term investment; bans on exporting raw ore to force local processing, as Indonesia did for nickel; obligations to cede a stake to the state or to nationals. The harshest amount to confiscation: permit withdrawal, export blocks, arrest of managers, seizure of stock. Several Sahel countries, after changes of regime, have adopted new mining codes and engaged in tough standoffs with foreign mining groups. Rising demand for energy transition metals, lithium, cobalt, copper, rare earths, amplifies the phenomenon. For political risk insurance, it is the terrain of creeping expropriation: a series of measures none of which, alone, is a confiscation, but whose cumulative effect deprives the investor of its asset. Policies must then say at what point a tax or regulatory measure becomes a loss.
In Mali, the August 2023 mining code raised the stake the state can take in a new mine to as much as 30 percent. In January 2025, in its dispute with Barrick over applying those rules, the state had about three tonnes of gold seized from the Loulo-Gounkoto complex, after detaining four of the group's employees, and Barrick suspended production.
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