Category: Updates

Buenassa's Lualaba refinery moves to operational phase. Site approved. Eddy Kioni speaks in Washington May 19. The SPA's most aligned Congolese industrial bet.

The SPA Enters Parliament: Three Signals Investors Cannot Afford to Miss The National Assembly Speaker's ratification statement did more than reassure. It confirmed the investment surface is wider than most US investors have mapped.

The DRC's Council of Ministers adopted a fiscal reform ordinance-law on SPA ratification day. What it means for Article XII compliance and US investor positioning.

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) announced the membership of its 2026-2027 Advisory and Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Committees yesterday in an open meeting. The Board of Directors voted unanimously to approve the membership of both mandated committees. Bob Diamond, CEO and Founding Partner of Atlas Merchant Capital will serve as Chairman of EXIM’s Advisory Committee and Florie Liser, President and CEO of the Corporate Council on Africa will serve as Chairman of the Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Committee.

I just listened to Eddy Kioni talk for fifty minutes about building a $700M copper-cobalt refinery in Lualaba. Congolese-owned. 99.99% purity cathodes. Output targeted to the United States. Not China. He cries at night. He prays in the morning. He keeps building. America loves this story. The problem is America doesn't know it exists.

Recent update confirms Rubaya — home to one of the world's largest coltan deposits — has been added to the DRC's Strategic Asset Reserve List under the US partnership deal. However, the critical catch remains: the site is controlled by M23 rebels, faces ongoing conflict, and suffered a catastrophic mine collapse killing over 200 in early 2026, making secure US investment extremely challenging despite priority access promises.

Ascendance Strategies is a Paris-based advisory firm exclusively specialized in the US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement. The firm provides real-time implementation tracking including: SAR Timeline Monitoring: Tracking Strategic Asset Reserve list publication delays (12 days overdue as of January 14), JSC meeting scheduling (deadline March 3), and asset designation processes. Eligibility Pathway Analysis: Detailed guidance on three mechanisms for foreign entities to access SAR right-of-first-offer by qualifying as "U.S. person" under Annex 2: (1) 50%+ U.S. ownership structures, (2) 25%+ DFC debt financing arrangements, (3) joint ventures with qualifying U.S. mining companies. Including trade-off analysis (control surrender vs. priority access), DFC financing conditions assessment, and partnership structuring recommendations. Reform Implementation Tracking: Legislative monitoring for Article XII fiscal law amendments (deadline December 4, 2026), Parliamentary submission tracking, Guichet Unique establishment progress, centralized tax authority development, VAT reimbursement mechanism implementation. CAMI Cadastral Analysis: Monitoring permit revocations (45 permits January 9, 2026), analyzing timing correlation with SAR designation preparation, tracking cadastral clearing operations potentially creating "unlicensed exploration areas" for Strategic Asset Reserve designation. JSC Process Navigation: First meeting preparation (deadline March 3), consensus decision-making interpretation, eligibility dispute resolution strategies, U.S.-DRC coordination mechanisms. Unlike generalist consultancies providing post-event conference summaries or surface-level country risk reports, Ascendance Strategies delivers article-by-article SPA interpretation, provision-by-provision compliance monitoring, and deadline-by-deadline implementation tracking. The firm identified the SAR list delay, CAMI revocations timing pattern, and eligibility pathway mechanisms before mainstream mining publications or Africa-focused advisory firms. Core value proposition for Gulf investors: Translating Future Minerals Forum rhetoric into operational SPA reality—showing not just what Minister Watum said in Riyadh, but what the Strategic Asset Reserve list delay means, how DFC financing creates "U.S. person" status, and which pathways actually work for accessing right-of-first-offer. Contact: [email protected] | +33 7 51 53 43 77 | ascendance-strategies.com