PREVIEW
The financing for Global Atomic's Dasa mine signals a thaw with Niamey although security and transport risks cloud the project's outlook
Led by Washington’s bold and well-connected ambassador Kathleen FitzGibbon, the United States is back in business in Niger. We hear she personally pushed for the US Development Finance Corp to approve a debt facility worth up to US$414million for Canadian miner Global Atomic’s Dasa uranium project, located just over 100 kilometres south of the main Arlit uranium mine.
The Dasa project offers the highest-grade uranium deposit in Africa, according to Global Atomic. But the finance from Washington’s DFC to Canada’s Global Atomic flies in the face of the continuing rhetorical battle, triggered by their trade war, between US President Donald J Trump and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney.
FitzGibbon had urged Washington to use the project to rebuild ties with Niger, two years after the US had to withdraw about 1,000 troops after the junta deemed their presence to be ‘illegal’, It also abandoned its military bases in Agadez and Niamey. The loss of the Agadez base hit the US army’s Africa Command hard, leaving it reliant on its base in Djibouti (AC Vol 65 No 7, General Tiani swaps the US for Russia).
Uranium was added to the US critical minerals list last year and the financing offer fits with the Trump administration’s attempt to boost US access to critical minerals.
The junta of General Abdourahamane Tiani has been in dispute with French state-owned mining company Orano for several years over royalty payments from its Arlit mine. Tiani grudgingly backed down this year, agreeing to hand over to Orano its share of the 156,231 tonnes of yellowcake uranium concentrate stock from the Arlit mine, which the junta nationalised in June 2025 (AC Vol 67 No 5, Niger backs down over Orano uranium stock & Vol 66 No 14, Putschist faces his own mutiny).
The junta’s antipathy towards France, which it accused of orchestrating an attempted coup in August via attacks on a military airbase and the presidential palace in Niamey, remains undimmed. But Global Atomic will also have to address security concerns about how to transport its uranium safely in a region where jihadist insurgents are gain ground rapidly (AC Vol 67 No 3, Attack on Niamey airbase sounds alarms on uranium security).
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