Côte d’Ivoire · MINING FINANCE

BNI mining risk filled the agenda in Abidjan on Tuesday 22 September 2026. Côte d’Ivoire’s state-controlled bank spent the day on how to lend to miners safely.

The Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières, West Africa’s regional stock exchange, in the Plateau district of Abidjan. File photograph. (Photo: Rio Times media library)

BNI mining risk got a full day of attention in Abidjan on Tuesday 22 September 2026. The Banque Nationale d’Investissement, controlled by the Ivorian state, opened its third Risk Day in the Cocody district.

What the bank actually did

This was not a loan, a rating or a published report. It was a day of in-house training at the bank’s own integrated centre, opened by its director general, Youssouf Fadiga.

The theme, in the bank’s own wording, was the mining sector as an engine of growth. The sub-theme was building a loan book that is profitable, resilient and creates value.

“Every growth opportunity comes with responsibility,” Fadiga told the room, in remarks reported by the Ivorian news site Abidjan.net. He said mining lending demands close knowledge of operators, production cycles and business models.

Bernardin Tabé, who runs risk management at the bank, said risk culture is not his department’s job alone. He noted that an earlier edition of the event had dealt with real estate.

Why a state bank is talking about mines

BNI is not a small player in the country. The Ivorian state holds about 81 percent of its capital, according to the government directorate that manages public shareholdings.

Its balance sheet reached 3,166 billion CFA francs at the end of 2025 (about US$5.5 billion), a rise of 34 percent. Net profit came to 46.8 billion CFA francs (about US$82 million).

Those figures are BNI’s own, presented in June 2026 and reported by the Abidjan daily Fraternité Matin. The bank says the result lifted it to second place among Ivorian banks by assets.

The CFA franc used in West Africa is pegged to the euro at a fixed parity. Conversions here use 572 to the US dollar, the mid-market rate on 22 September 2026 from er-api.com.

A permit freeze five days earlier

On Thursday 17 September 2026 the National Security Council met at the presidential palace in Abidjan. The council is chaired by President Alassane Ouattara and coordinates security policy.

Its communique announced a six-month moratorium on issuing semi-industrial and artisanal mining permits. It also ordered 21 new river patrol units and heavier penalties for illegal gold panning.

Industrial mining is untouched by the freeze, which covers only semi-industrial and artisanal operations. The communique was signed by Fidèle Sarassoro, the council’s executive secretary.

Land disturbed by artisanal gold mining at Tarkwa in Ghana, the kind of small-scale digging Côte d’Ivoire now wants to control. File photograph. (Photo: Rio Times media library)

No start date for the moratorium has been reported. Six months counted from the decision would take it to March 2027.

Where the exploration permits actually came from

A decree of Wednesday 4 February 2026 gave Kangue Mining Côte d’Ivoire SA a research permit near Odienné, in the north-west. It covers gold, copper and lithium, and runs for four years.

The same cabinet meeting gave the company a second gold research permit in Korhogo and Niakaramandougou. Research permits allow drilling and sampling, not extraction.

Lithium matters because it goes into batteries, and West Africa is being scouted hard for it. Whether anything is found at Odienné will take years of drilling to establish.

The prize Côte d’Ivoire is chasing

The country mined 59.2 tonnes of gold in 2025, eighth in Africa. Mamadou Sangafowa-Coulibaly, the minister of mines, petroleum and energy, wants second or third place by 2035.

He said so on Wednesday 16 September 2026 in Abidjan, at a meeting on a new state precious-metals company. He added that its refinery should start work in the first half of 2027.

The mines ministry also says the country ranked first in West Africa on the Fraser Institute’s 2026 mining attractiveness index. The Canadian research group surveys mining executives each year.

What BNI mining risk means for investors

BNI named no mining client, no loan and no target at the event. The signal is that a state bank is building the machinery to lend to mines.

Mining projects in frontier economies often raise their money abroad rather than from local lenders. Fadiga argued that data and artificial intelligence can help BNI spot risk signals earlier.

He added that those tools must serve rigorous governance and informed human decisions. This fits the wider contest traced in Africa: The New Scramble.

The next test is whether the moratorium is lifted or extended in 2027. The second is whether BNI ever writes a mining loan it is willing to name.

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