Orano in Niger (Somair)

The Orano-Somair file is the gradual loss by French group Orano of its uranium assets in Niger after the July 2023 coup, culminating in the nationalization of Somair announced in June 2025. On July 26, 2023, soldiers overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum in Niger, where French group Orano has mined uranium at Arlit for decades through Somair (Société des mines de l'Aïr), in which the Nigerien state is a minority shareholder. What followed comes down to a few dates. The closure of the border with Benin cut the export route through Cotonou, and output piled up at the site with no way out. In June 2024, Niamey withdrew Orano's permit for the Imouraren deposit, one of the largest in the world, never brought into production. In December 2024, Orano announced it had lost operational control of Somair. In June 2025, the government announced its nationalization. Orano has started international arbitration proceedings against the state. For a political risk underwriter, the case runs through almost the whole CPRI (credit and political risk insurance) policy menu, in the order in which the losses arrive. Export impossibility comes first, and it is the trickiest cover: the policy responds only if the block results from an act of the host government, whereas here the route was cut by a crisis between two neighboring states, with measures taken on both sides. The Imouraren withdrawal raises the question of the insured value of a permit never put into production. The loss of control in December 2024 is a de facto expropriation, which the formal nationalization of June 2025 confirms. That gap matters: the policy's waiting period, the underwriting year affected and the amount of the indemnity depend on which date is taken as the date of loss. Then there is the other side. A CPRI policy pays and subrogates the insurer to the insured's rights, so the arbitration under way also becomes the insurer's, which looks to it for recovery.