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Last week saw one of the most significant advancements in the Lobito Corridor project. Both the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and African Development Bank (ADB) announced a joint investment of $500 million to the railway; AFC also announced plans to launch a new financing effort in the third quarter of this year, with the aim of a financial close in the fourth quarter of 2027.

This would culminate in the project’s completion in 2030. AFC also revealed that it was in talks with at least ten African and foreign financiers to raise an additional $3-5 billion for the project, including with Wall Street’s Citigroup.

At a time when the world needs more cobalt and copper for the energy transition, the stakes of the Lobito Corridor couldn’t be higher. This piece will act as your guide for understanding why that is.

What is the Lobito Corridor?

The Lobito Corridor is a railway project that connects the Copperbelt, a 450 kilometer mineral-dense region along the Democratic Republic of the Congo-Zambia border, to the Atlantic Port of Lobito in Angola. The journey traverses through key rail hubs, such as Kolwezi in the DRC, before arriving at Lobito.

Worth $10 billion, the Lobito Corridor will extend across 1,739 km, with a potential capacity of up to 20 million tons.

The project has been one spanning close to a century. The Benguela Railway, the central axis of the Lobito Corridor, was first constructed in Angola in 1931 during the Portuguese colonial period. Following heavy damage sustained during the Angolan Civil War, Benguela underwent rehabilitation lasting until 2014, with repairs costing up to $2 billion.

In 2023, a consortium was formed to oversee the corridor as part of a 30-year concession, investing $455 million in Angola and $100 million in the DRC.

Why is it so important?

The Copperbelt is home to roughly 73% of the world’s cobalt and a major share of its copper, two critical minerals used in both everyday and emerging technologies. Virtually every device you use (including the one you’re reading this piece on) relies on copper and cobalt. The advancement of artificial intelligence and adjacent technologies, such as data centers, is heightening the need for such minerals, demanding greater access that the corridor is designed to deliver.

Speed of trade is also at play. A trial shipment by Ivanhoe Mines in late 2023 demonstrated that copper concentrate could reach Lobito in 8 days, whereas road transport to the Port of Durban in South Africa took 25 days. That speedier transit means lower costs for both exporters and importers, as well as less capital locked in work-in-progress inventory.

The “why” behind the corridor also bleeds into the geopolitical. Beijing has a stranglehold over the mineral supply chains of Africa; in the DRC alone, Chinese firms control 80% of cobalt output, with Beijing’s imports of African minerals and metals having reached approximately $50 billion in 2022–a stark contrast to the EU at just under $20 billion and the US well below $10 billion, according to The Economist.

For Western governments and businesses, the Lobito Corridor is the gateway to wrestling access to African critical minerals away from Beijing. The US International Development Finance Corporation signed a $553 million investment into the project at the end of 2025, while the EU announced it had mobilized €2 billion (~$2.31 billion). European countries have also made individual contributions; Italy invested $320 million in 2024.

Will it deliver?

Exciting announcements and investment packages are one thing, but actual capacity is another.

The Lobito Corridor can currently handle 200,000 tons yearly, a far cry from its stated aim. Furthermore, the Zambia and DRC extensions remain unbuilt; until they are, miners still need trucks to reach the railhead.

If the corridor does live up to its potential, it could handle the entirety of the DRC’s cobalt exports with room to spare. For EV manufacturers, battery producers, and Western governments trying to diversify supply chains away from Chinese-controlled logistics, that’s transformational.

But it also risks creating a new vulnerability: the global energy transition could come to depend significantly on a single rail line in a historically unstable region. As the Iran crisis has demonstrated with oil, heavy reliance on one single node of supply always carries risk.

The Lobito Corridor is both the most credible Western counter-move in the minerals race and a project still years from delivering on its promise. The real test won’t be whether the money is committed, but whether the trains will actually run.

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The New Dependency

As the world moves into the hot summer season, eyes on the Strait of Hormuz are intensifying. Since the Iran crisis began, roughly 20 million barrels a day—about 25% of global seaborne oil—has been choked off. Reuters reports cumulative losses having reached 624 million barrels over 52 days, a figure that staggers even seasoned energy analysts.

Even as hopes rise for an end to the crisis amid Pakistan-mediated peace talks, the systemic ripple effects will last years to come. Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), has been unambiguous: the “damage is done.”

The immediate casualties are well-documented: oil above $120 a barrel today, freight costs surging, insurance markets seizing up. But the more consequential story may be what the crisis is doing to the energy systems built to replace oil.

For decades, those who championed renewable energy warned that continued dependence on fossil fuels would eventually produce a calamity like this. Governments across the world are now listening.

The UK announced a March 15 package of clean energy measures, including the introduction of “plug-in” solar panels, explicitly framed around combating energy insecurity. In China, which dominates the global solar industry, exports doubled in March alone, reaching 68GW, according to CGTN Europe.

The market logic has shifted. The energy transition is no longer driven primarily by climate consensus. It’s now driven by something governments find easier to sell: national security.

But there’s a problem embedded in this pivot: the clean energy system isn’t resource-independent, either. Solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles all require copper, lithium, cobalt, and rare earths at enormous scale. Critical minerals accumulate in infrastructure, and that infrastructure has to be built, replaced, and expanded continuously.

The numbers are striking. The IEA projects critical mineral demand growth of 3.5 times current levels by 2030, with lithium alone potentially requiring 40 times today’s supply. The U.S. Geological Survey projects global demand for key critical minerals to increase by 400-600% by 2040 to support clean energy technologies. These were already steep curves before the Iran war; the crisis is steepening them further.

The New Scramble

The backdoor dealmaking has already begun and the pace is accelerating. USA Rare Earth recently completed a $2.8 billion acquisition of the Brazilian rare earth mine Serra Verde. The US and India have announced a joint partnership to restart copper and cobalt mine production in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The message being signaled: mineral security is now as urgent as energy security.

Gulf countries, despite experiencing mounting fiscal pressure from the Iran war, aren’t sitting out of this race. More than a week into the war, American investment firm Cove Capital and Saudi conglomerate Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al-Qahtani Group of Companies (AHQ) announced a joint multibillion-dollar fund to invest in critical mineral projects across Africa. Capital that might have retreated is instead being redeployed toward the next strategic frontier.

That frontier is increasingly African. The continent holds approximately 30% of the world’s known critical mineral reserves and is projected to supply 10% of global rare earths by 2030, alongside dominant shares of cobalt and manganese.

Meanwhile, China’s structural position complicates every Western and Gulf strategy. Controlling approximately 90% of rare earth processing globally, Beijing’s leverage over the energy transition doesn’t depend on owning the mines. Its doubling of solar exports in March is a signal of that: the transition is accelerating and China intends to be the one supplying it.

The oil concentration that defined the Gulf’s geopolitical power for over half a century may, over time, give way to mineral concentration across the mines of the DRC, South Africa, and beyond, with processing power anchored, for now, in China.

That’s a trend the Iran war most certainly did not start. But it has accelerated it, loudly and irreversibly.

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KEY FACTS

• WHAT HAPPENED? The Iran war has disrupted diamond trade to Dubai, squeezing the natural diamond pipeline from both the supply and demand sides

• WHY IT MATTERS? Natural diamonds were already losing demand to cheaper, lab-grown alternatives before the conflict began. The Gulf crisis is now accelerating that pressure

• WHAT’S NEXT? Even if the conflict is temporary, the buyers and jewelers who pivot toward lab-grown diamonds during this window may not pivot back

Engagement season will be here before you know it. But the ring you buy this year may look and cost very differently than the one your parents bought.

The global diamond trade was already navigating one of its most consequential debates in decades: whether natural diamonds can hold their ground against the surging appeal of synthetic, lab-grown alternatives. Then the Iran war arrived, and the question became more urgent. The Gulf crisis is throwing fuel into the fire that is the natural diamond pipeline.

A Trade Hub Under Siege

To understand the stakes, you need to understand how central Dubai has become to the global diamond economy, which is ironic given that the UAE has no mines of its own. In 2021, the UAE emerged as the world’s largest rough-diamond trading hub, with $22.8 billion traded. By 2024, it was exporting $9.83 billion in rough diamonds, rivaling Antwerp.

That role has shaped the UAE’s diplomatic footprint across Africa, home to seven of the world’s ten largest diamond-producing countries. Angola, for instance, directed 78.6% of its diamond exports to the UAE in 2025, more than any other destination including Antwerp.

Now that connective tissue is under strain. Jewelry intelligence firm Rapaport reported that diamond dealers postponed rough-diamond tenders in Dubai following the escalation of the Iran conflict, a significant signal, since even a brief pause disrupts price discovery and manufacturer planning across the whole midstream. The UAE supplies over two-thirds of India’s diamond imports, making India, the world’s largest diamond cutting and polishing hub, directly exposed to any Gulf friction.

The supply disruptions bleed into the demand side, too. Reuters reported that luxury brands at Mall of the Emirates saw sales drops of 30-50% in March versus the prior year. In a region accounting for roughly 5% of global luxury sales, that’s not a rounding error. Add maritime war-risk insurance premiums surging over 1,000% on Gulf shipping routes, and the cost of moving natural diamonds through their primary corridor has become materially more expensive almost overnight.

What makes this moment particularly consequential is that the Iran war arrived on top of a natural diamond industry already under serious pressure. India’s cut and polished diamond exports fell to their lowest level in over two decades in 2024, dropping 16.8% to $13.3 billion according to the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council. Botswana, the world’s second-largest diamond producer saw rough sales fall roughly 52% in 2024. The Iran war isn’t the origin of these problems; it’s an accelerant.

The Synthetic Wildcard

While the war tightens the screws on natural diamonds, synthetic alternatives are operating in an almost parallel universe. Lab-grown diamonds are manufactured in controlled environments; China alone contributes 40-50% of global synthetic diamond production according to Coherent Market Insights.

The value proposition for synthetic diamonds has always rested on price: synthetic stones can cost 80-90% less than comparable natural diamonds, according to Fyne Jewellery. That gap has widened as production scaled up. Now, with natural prices facing upward pressure from Gulf logistics costs and supply disruptions, the differential stands to become even more pronounced. For a buyer weighing a $3,000 lab-grown stone against a $15,000 natural equivalent, the Iran war goes beyond geopolitics, it becomes a price signal.

The Iran conflict may be temporary, and Dubai’s role as the world’s dominant diamond trading hub is unlikely to evaporate. But the structural shift toward synthetic diamonds was already underway, and the war is accelerating the very conditions that make lab-grown alternatives more attractive.

The luxury-trade model the diamond industry relied on for decades assumed frictionless mobility: stones moving quickly through a stable corridor to affluent consumers. That assumption no longer holds. Whether the conflict resolves sooner or later, buyers who discover synthetic diamonds during this window are unlikely to forget the lesson.

When you shop for that engagement ring this season, the most consequential question may no longer be how many carats or what cut. It may simply be: natural or synthetic?

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KEY FACTS

• WHAT HAPPENED? Gold prices have surged since 2025, converting Sudan’s mines into a war-finance engine that has attracted both Russia and Ukraine

• WHY IT MATTERS? The higher the price climbs, the more economically rational it becomes for foreign powers to engage with Sudan

• WHAT’S NEXT? With prices still elevated and enforcement uneven, the cycle shows no signs of breaking

When gold breached $3,000 per ounce in early 2025, financial markets cheered. By year’s end, Reuters reported the metal had surged 64% and prices have climbed a further 17% into 2026. Now, the Iran war is spurring that upward trend forward, as investors worldwide flock to gold as a safe haven asset.

For investors, it is the commodity story of the decade. For Sudan, it’s something far grimmer: a strategic amplifier prolonging one of the world’s most destructive conflicts, now marking its third anniversary this month.

The forces driving gold’s ascent are well understood. Central banks added 1,045 tonnes to reserves in 2024 alone, with a World Gold Council survey finding that 95% of central bankers expected holdings to increase further. The result is a metal that has become less a commodity and more of a sanctions-proof reserve currency, and that quality is precisely what makes it so dangerous in conflict zones.

Sudan’s Golden War Economy

Sudan produces roughly 70 tonnes of gold annually, generating $1.57 billion in official export revenues in 2024. But official figures are almost certainly an undercount; estimates suggest smuggled gold runs at roughly four times the legal export volume. Sudan ranks fifth across the continent in terms of gold production and sixteenth worldwide.

It’s for this reason the ongoing war has turned Sudan’s mining sector into a de facto battlefield. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) extract revenue through direct mine control, militia taxation, and smuggling protection rackets. The RSF appears structurally more dependent on gold, particularly given its domination of Sudan’s western territories, where the country’s gold wealth is plentiful.

The economics are brutally straightforward. Higher gold prices raise the stakes of controlling a minefield or smuggling corridor, making territorial competition more significant than ever. Artisanal mining, the dominant mode in Sudan, is the primary interface between armed actors and the gold economy and it scales with price. When bullion rises, more miners arrive, militia “protection” becomes more lucrative, and the incentive to contest corridors intensifies. Sudan is not just a country with a gold problem; it’s a country where the battlefield and the goldfield increasingly overlap.

The Forgotten Russia-Ukraine Connection

Yet the link between Sudanese gold extends far beyond the realm of Northeast Africa. Russia transferred 40% of its National Welfare Fund holdings into gold in 2022, a pre-emptive hedge against Western sanctions that has since helped insulate Moscow from complete economic isolation. It now holds approximately 2,333 tonnes in reserves, up roughly 125% from 2013.

On the day Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo flew to Moscow. Within weeks, large quantities of Sudanese gold were reportedly transferred to Russia via the Moscow-backed paramilitary Wagner Group, which had embedded itself in RSF networks.

Investigative reporting has traced alleged shipments routed through Syria, with proceeds helping finance Russian operations in Ukraine. The EU sanctioned Meroe Gold and related Russian-linked entities, but enforcement has remained uneven; gold is compact, fungible, and easily re-labeled after refining.

Ukraine has responded in kind. Following an unscheduled September 2023 meeting between SAF General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and President Zelenskyy, where both discussed countering groups “financed by Russia”, Ukrainian forces were allegedly deployed in support of the SAF. Footage surfaced of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Wagner personnel near gold mining sites. The Guardian described it as part of an “emerging campaign” by Kyiv to impose costs on Russian networks beyond Eastern Europe, with Africa becoming a key battleground.

The Feedback Loop

The most dangerous insight here is the self-reinforcing cycle at work. Higher prices attract more miners, raise the value of militia protection, and improve the payoff from smuggling, all without any shift in political conditions. Sanctions have struggled to interrupt this system because gold’s physical properties make it uniquely hard to police.

For investors, this dynamic carries a specific warning: gold’s safe-haven status can itself destabilize producer states when armed actors monetize a price rally faster than governments can tax it. Sudan is the clearest current example, but the pattern holds across conflict-affected Sahelian producers.

The critical variable to watch is not price alone, but whether higher gold prices coincide with deeper smuggling volumes, increased mine-area violence, and sharper Russian-Ukrainian covert competition in Africa. All three are currently trending in the same direction. One ounce at a time, the bullion rally is being converted into something markets rarely price: the extended duration of wars that might otherwise have ended.

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KEY FACTS

• WHAT HAPPENED? Iran’s strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure have disrupted global oil and gas markets, but Gulf sovereign funds and private investors are pressing ahead with critical minerals investments in Africa

• WHY IT MATTERS? With the Gulf accounting for roughly $179 billion in African investments over the past decade, any sustained pullback would reshape how Africa finances its mining sector

• WHAT’S NEXT? Expect short-term delays in deal execution as Gulf budgets absorb the oil shock, followed by a surge in infrastructure-for-minerals agreements once the crisis stabilizes

Iran’s strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure have sent shockwaves through the global economy. Crude oil is trading at roughly $100 a barrel, its highest point since the 2022 surge. QatarEnergy, the world’s leading liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer, has temporarily paused production, a move that alone caused UK natural gas prices to jump 40%. Countries such as Sri Lanka have resorted to drastic fuel rationing while European states scramble for new energy sources.

Yet beyond oil, other economic pillars are under being impacted, including Gulf capital outflows. With GCC states generating a current account surplus of over $800 billion, the Gulf monarchies have become major capital providers for economies around the world, and Africa sits near the top of that list.

Africa’s critical minerals landscape has attracted foreign powers from across the globe. Yet while heavyweights such as the US and China dominate the conversation, scant attention is paid to Gulf states, which despite the ongoing conflict, remain intent on keeping their mining-related capital flowing into Africa.

Case in point: Over a week into the Iran crisis, American investment firm Cove Capital and Saudi conglomerate Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al-Qahtani Group of Companies (AHQ) announced a joint multibillion-dollar fund to invest in critical minerals projects across Africa, signaling that the war has done little to deter Gulf appetite for African resources.

Since 2019, the Gulf—particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE—has positioned itself as a leading backer of Africa’s capital markets. Gulf investments across Africa reached approximately $179 billion over the past decade, rivaling commitments from larger powers such as the US and UK. While energy and ports lead in volume, mining has emerged as a priority sector, particularly in the contest for critical minerals.

Emirati mining company International Resources Holdings has secured stakes in Zambia’s Mopani Copper Mines. Emirati firm Primera Group signed a $1.9 billion deal with DRC state miner Sakima to rehabilitate four mines focused on tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold. Saudi Arabia’s Manara Minerals, meanwhile, acquired a 10% stake in Vale Base Metals, which includes African and Brazilian copper and nickel assets; last June, Manara was also reportedly in negotiations for a 15-20% stake in First Quantum’s Zambian operations.

Gold, though not traditionally classified as a critical mineral, has also become a focal point. Dubai has emerged as a key trading and processing hub for African gold exported from countries such as Ghana. Riyadh has entered the fold too, striking a mining agreement with Sudan’s military-backed government to conduct gold exploration along the Red Sea coastline, in spite of the country’s war.

For African partners, the stakes of the Iran crisis extend well beyond energy. GCC fiscal positions remain heavily oil-dependent, with hydrocarbons providing roughly 30-90% of government revenues. Sustained export disruption driven by the Strait of Hormuz closure and now Houthi threats over the Red Sea could translate into tighter budgets and more conservative overseas spending.

Yet despite these pressures, Gulf states are unlikely to retreat easily. Amandeep Kaur Ahuja, Head of Research at Confluence Consultants, argues the Gulf’s Africa strategy was never built for short-term agility.

“The model of Gulf investing in Africa has never been related to aid or loans,” Ahuja said. “The mindset has always been largely of long-term strategy, as opposed to something that can just be changed very quickly based on regional dynamics.”

That long-term orientation is buttressed by structural imperatives that the crisis has only sharpened. China’s near-total dominance of critical minerals supply chains—controlling an estimated 85-90% of global rare earth mine-to-metal refining—makes upstream African equity a strategic imperative in an increasingly multipolar world.

The Gulf is also positioning itself as a serious emerging technology player, particularly in AI, through partnerships with firms such as NVIDIA and Quantinuum. Those ambitions depend on the very minerals concentrated in African soil.

Ahuja also sees the energy transition as an accelerant. “Because we’re seeing so much pressure on oil and conventional sources of energy, I would imagine that the transition to renewable energy would be accelerated and that requires quite a lot of the minerals that are in Africa.”

Most ironically, the Hormuz crisis reinforces rather than undermines the case for hard assets abroad. Gold has long served as a safe haven during periods of market stress, and Gulf policymakers appear to be drawing the same conclusion about upstream mineral equity more broadly.

Capital outflows may stall in the short term; Ahuja expects delays in capital deployment over the next six to twelve months. But a halt is another matter entirely. Once the crisis subsides, expect a surge in infrastructure-for-minerals deals: the Gulf seeking resources, Africa providing them in exchange for strategic infrastructure.

Far from retreating, Gulf states are being pushed to become more strategic. The minerals underpinning the energy transition and the AI revolution are far too important to abandon. And in a strange way, regional insecurity is making the case for African critical minerals stronger, not weaker.

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KEY FACTS

• WHAT HAPPENED? South Africa has deployed over 2,000 troops under Operation Prosper to combat zama zama criminal syndicates, who illegally extract up to 30% of the country’s annual gold output

• WHY IT MATTERS? South Africa supplies large quantities of minerals essential to smartphones, EVs, and green energy technology. Illegal mining destabilizes those supply chains at a moment of surging global demand

• WHAT’S NEXT? Even a successful crackdown risks displacing criminal networks to neighboring countries, while record-high gold prices and new Red Sea-driven shipping routes through the Cape of Good Hope may give the zama zamas new incentives and new opportunities to expand

Creatures of the Night

As the night sky stretches over Gauteng province, tens of thousands of men descend into long-abandoned mining shafts once the clock strikes midnight. While residents sleep, these men extract the very mineral wealth powering our everyday lives: from smartphones to electric vehicles.

The paradox: one of the world’s most critical mineral jurisdictions is also home to one of the world’s largest illegal mining economies in South Africa.

Known as “zama zamas,” these criminal syndicates consist of roughly 30,000 illegal miners, operating across approximately 6,000 abandoned shafts in Gauteng, North West, and Free State. Gold is their primary target; illicit output is estimated to represent 5-30% of South Africa’s annual gold production, costing the country up to ZAR 60 billion ($3.5 billion) annually. It’s not just gold, either. Platinum Group Metals (PGMs), chrome, manganese, and coal are all being targeted.

The toll of inaction has become too steep. This month, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa launched Operation Prosper, a military campaign to counter illegal mining nationwide, at a cost of $49.2 million, according to Associated Press.

From South Africa to Silicon Valley

South Africa’s mineral wealth is, quite literally, a goldmine. The country is Africa’s third-largest gold producer, producing up to 104 tonnes in 2023. It also accounts for roughly 70% of global platinum production, over 40% of international chromium output, and approximately 36% of the world’s manganese supply, the largest share of any country.

These aren’t just niche commodities. PGMs and manganese are essential to catalytic converters, fuel cells, and high-energy batteries that sit at the heart of Europe’s and China’s green-tech ambitions. Nearly all everyday devices—including the one you’re reading this on—carries some reliance on South African minerals. Yet it’s precisely those supply chains that the zama zamas are undermining, and with them, the technologies consumers worldwide eagerly anticipate.

A War Below Ground

Under Operation Prosper, over 2,000 troops have been deployed across five provinces: Gauteng, North West, Free State, Western Cape, and Eastern Cape. The mission is to shut illegal shafts, disrupt gang networks, and halt the open transport of illicitly mined ore.

Early results are encouraging: dozens of shafts closed, hundreds of arrests, and hundreds of tonnes of material seized. Yet, while this is the largest deployment of its kind, it’s not the first. A similar operation in 2023 failed to deter the zama zamas long-term.

South Africa’s mineral wealth is thus a double-edged sword: drawing global investment and criminal enterprise in equal measure.

Beyond the Mines

A sustained crackdown could suppress anywhere from 5 to 30 tonnes of illicit gold output per year, depending on enforcement effectiveness. But the zama zamas are unlikely to yield quietly. Gold prices are at historic highs, around $4,500 per ounce, with the Iran crisis continuing to drive investors toward safe-haven assets. As the resource grows more valuable, the incentive to extract it—legally or not—only intensifies.

The shifting geography of global shipping adds another wrinkle. As vessels reroute from the Red Sea to the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa stands to see a surge in maritime traffic, and with it, new corridors for illicit trade.

Most critically, even a successful Operation Prosper risks achieving little more than displacement. Criminal networks pushed out of South Africa will likely migrate to Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and beyond, where illegal mining activities are also rampant. These countries are equally ill-equipped to absorb the pressure.

The story of South Africa’s illegal mining is, ultimately, a story about the fragility of the global critical minerals supply chain: a fragility that will only deepen as demand for EVs, batteries, and clean energy technology accelerates.

When viewed from this angle, Operation Prosper at best marks a genuine turning point. At worst, it’s the latest chapter in a long, unresolved conflict, one whose consequences stretch far beyond Gauteng’s abandoned shafts and all the way to the halls of Silicon Valley.

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