AFP // MINING
All practice areasWe connect West African mining title holders with technical partners, offtakers and international investors. Three markets running on very different timelines, one shared requirement: verifiable titles and identified counterparties.
Scope
We do not cover the whole extractive sector. The scope below matches the files we know how to appraise and place.
Support for holders of exploration or mining licences seeking to fund their work programme, open their capital or sell down a stake. The title is verified before any presentation.
Introductions to operators able to carry out the work: mining companies, drilling contractors, geological consultancies, operating joint ventures.
Bringing producers together with long-term buyers. A solid offtake turns a project into a financeable asset; it is often the link missing from a West African file.
The mining services market is a regular entry point for international groups: shorter cycles, a more measured capital commitment, direct exposure to the operators already in place.
Portfolios and minority stakes put up for sale by family groups, juniors or operators being restructured. Handled exclusively under mandate and NCNDA.
Counterparties
Two populations that do not meet on their own: West African asset holders on one side, international operators and capital on the other. Each party is verified before any introduction.
The files we receive, appraise and present.
The international counterparties we approach.
Market view
The three markets we cover do not follow the same rules. A credible file is built around those differences.
Guinea is a global benchmark for bauxite, and most of the competition between projects is not decided on grade. It is decided on the distance to an export point, on whether a transport solution exists and on the ability to secure a loading window. A bauxite file that arrives without a logistics plan is sent back for study; we prepare it with the sponsor before opening it to a counterparty.
Iron ore projects are long-cycle projects: a heavy export chain, high upfront investment and volumes that must be contracted. They appeal to steel groups, infrastructure funds and contractors able to carry a multi-year schedule. We do not present them to investors looking for a quick exit, and we say so to the sponsor at the scoping stage.
Burkina Faso is one of the main gold-producing countries in West Africa, and we have an office in Ouagadougou. Gold is also the segment that attracts the most unmandated intermediaries. We only handle files whose title is verifiable, whose chain of ownership is documented and whose parties accept KYC. No transaction without a written mandate, no documents circulated outside an NCNDA, and no use of facilitators with government departments. That discipline makes us turn files down; it is also the condition for being received by institutional counterparties.
Process
The same process applies to every mining file, whatever the metal and whatever the size of the project.
Nothing starts without a written mandate: scope, territory, term, fee and tail period.
The file is reduced to verifiable facts, then to an anonymised teaser.
KYC on both sides of the table. A counterparty that refuses to be verified gets nothing.
Presentation once the NCNDA is signed, with information released in stages.
Support through the negotiations to signature, followed by a 24-month tail period.
Mandates
Anonymised extracts from live or qualifying mandates. No company name, no precise location, no figures: the full file opens once the NCNDA is signed and the counterparty verified.
Access granted under NCNDA, once the counterparty has been verified.
Licence holder, operator, offtaker or investor: describe your position and the counterparty you are looking for. We scope first, then formalise before any documents are exchanged.
No company name, no precise location and no document circulates before the NCNDA is signed and the counterparty verified. That is the difference between structured deal origination and an opportunistic introduction.
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