Case Studies

Worked demonstrations of Afrimintel's decision-aid utility on real, current institutional investment decisions in African mining. Each case study is a self-produced screening artefact built from public primary sources and the platform's published data layer. No institutional partner has commissioned, reviewed, or endorsed any case study; the Counterparty Extension discipline is published at /quality-standard.

Available case studies — the triptych

Three structurally different decision shapes, demonstrating that Afrimintel produces decision-aid utility across decision-type, not only across asset-type. The test that institutional uptake is driven by investment-decision value rather than asset coverage.

CASE STUDY #1 PRE-FID GREENFIELD CRITICAL MINERAL

Kabanga Nickel Project — Pre-FID DFI Investment Brief

9 May 2026 · Lifezone Metals (NYSE: LZM) · Tanzania · Mid-2026 FID target

Worked screening of a live mid-2026 FID decision currently in front of the U.S. DFC, JOGMEC, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, and a commercial syndicate being assembled by Société Générale. Walks through the seven questions a DFI credit committee will ask, what Afrimintel surfaces in 30 minutes (with primary-source provenance), what Afrimintel does NOT do, a worked DCF price-stress scenario, and the defensible time/cost saving versus building the brief from scratch.

CASE STUDY #2 DISPUTED TENURE MULTI-CLAIM

Manono Lithium District — Disputed-Tenure Capital Allocation Brief

9 May 2026 · Multi-claim · DRC · ICSID arbitration active (ARB/23/20) — merits undecided

Worked institutional analysis of a 842 Mt @ 1.61% Li₂O deposit with multi-party claim structure (Zijin/Cominière NE construction, Dathcom-AVZ South arbitration, KoBold framework conditional, CATH conditional funding) and US–China critical-minerals overlay. Walks through the eight questions a capital committee will ask on a disputed-tenure asset, surfaces the conditional-pathway trigger framework (five pathways), and shows how the platform handles a fundamentally different decision shape from greenfield screening.

CASE STUDY #3 POST-SETTLEMENT OPERATING TIER-1

Loulo-Gounkoto — Post-Settlement Re-Entry & Capital Allocation Brief

9 May 2026 · Barrick Mining (NYSE: B; TSX: ABX) · Mali · 24 November 2025 settlement implemented

Worked institutional analysis of a Tier-1 operating gold complex post-settlement: ~$430M cash + 10-year permit extension + return of 3 metric tons of gold + ICSID withdrawal + 2023 Mining Code acceptance + 80/20 ownership preserved + revised 9-12% blended royalty. Walks through the seven questions a capital committee will ask on post-settlement re-entry, surfaces the durability-trigger framework (six conditions whose materialisation would invalidate the settlement framework), and shows the third structurally distinct decision shape.

CASE STUDY #4 INFRASTRUCTURE CORRIDOR MULTI-COUNTRY

Lobito Corridor — Critical Minerals Infrastructure Exposure Brief

9 May 2026 · LAR (Trafigura/Mota-Engil/Vecturis 30-year concession) · Angola → DRC → Zambia · Q4 2027 financial close target

Worked institutional screening of the Lobito Corridor as a system-level critical-minerals exposure decision spanning four structurally different exposure levels (direct infrastructure, operator-consortium, off-take/trader, asset-level). $6bn+ cumulative committed funding base verified. Walks through the nine questions a capital committee will ask, surfaces the trilateral political-coordination framework (Angola/DRC/Zambia through 2030), the geopolitical-shift framework (US-anchor → EU-led under Trump policy shift), the asset-level economic delta for Cu-Co assets within corridor catchment, and the eight-archetype institutional-allocation matrix. The fourth structurally distinct decision shape — system-level rather than asset-level.

CASE STUDY #5 OPERATING SUPERMAJOR DRC

Kamoa-Kakula — Operating-Supermajor Re-Rating Brief

9 May 2026 · Ivanhoe Mines 39.6% / Zijin Mining 39.6% / Crystal River 0.8% / Government of DRC 20% · Lualaba Province, southern DRC · post-31 March 2026 NI 43-101 reserve compression

Worked institutional analysis of how a capital allocator re-prices an operating Tier-1 copper asset following the 31 March 2026 NI 43-101 reserve compression: 466 Mt @ 2.82% Cu (13.1 Mt contained, ~30% reduction from December 2022) and 21-year mine life (down from prior 33-year). Walks through the seven questions an institutional reader will ask, applies the new reserve baseline to the platform DCF tool, surfaces the structural distinction between intact operator annual-guidance figures (290-330 kt 2026; 380-420 kt 2027; >500 kt 2028+) and the compressed DCF horizon implication, and names the trigger conditions for re-rating in either direction. The fifth structurally distinct decision shape — operating-supermajor re-rating, not pre-FID screening; the only case study where the platform has a verified prediction-resolution Track Record entry pre-dating the dossier publication.

How to use Afrimintel for an investment decision

The platform is structured so an institutional analyst can walk a real decision through it in 30–90 minutes depending on asset complexity. The pattern is:

Step 1 — Frame the decision. What specific decision is the institution about to make? Debt / equity / guarantee / PRI / off-take? At what stage (pre-FS, post-FS pre-FID, FID, post-FID expansion)? What is the lender consortium structure, if known?
Step 2 — Pull the asset dossier. Open the relevant Intelligence-Grade dossier from the platform's deposits database. Inspect the field-level provenance: every reserve, resource, grade, operator interest, and recent-event entry traces to a named, dated, citable primary source.
Step 3 — Read the country-risk composite. Open the country profile. The composite (30/25/25/20 Fraser/TI/RGI/EITI weighted, specification published) gives a screening floor. The four input scores are displayed alongside so the analyst can adjust for institution-specific judgement.
Step 4 — Stress-test the operator economics. Open the DCF tool. The tool is anchored to the Kamoa-Kakula five-scenario reconciliation suite, providing independent validation. Input the FS economics. Run conservative-case price stress (e.g., long-run consensus, downside scenario, tail-risk scenario). The tool surfaces the assumption stack at every step.
Step 5 — Cross-check against comparable assets. The province pages surface comparable assets within the same geological terrane. Cross-asset comparison provides relative benchmarking on grade, capex intensity, operator track record, and country structure.
Step 6 — Produce the screening brief. The platform output is the screening artefact — the consolidated factual package that answers "is this asset worth committing 12–18 weeks of formal due diligence to?" with primary-source rigor and an auditable trail. The brief is the input to the institution's deeper diligence; not the substitute for it.

What Afrimintel does and does not do

Does: Consolidated primary-source provenance on African mining assets. Country-risk screening composites. Province-level geological context. DCF price-stress scenarios anchored to Tier-1 reconciliation suites. Cross-asset comparable surfacing. Daily commodity and project-signal watchlist. Audit log of every correction, fix, and version bump. Three-state Quality Standard (Sourced / Derived / Absent — no fourth state).

Does NOT: Independent Engineer commissions. Project finance term-sheet drafting. Counterparty credit memos. ESG / IFC PS compliance audits. Legal opinions. Sovereign credit analysis. Real-time tradable price feeds. Direct counterparty engagement or brokerage. Endorsement or substitute for any specific institution's internal investment process.

The case study series

The triptych above (Kabanga pre-FID, Manono disputed-tenure, Loulo-Gounkoto post-settlement) is the first cohort of an intended ongoing case study series spanning operating Tier-1 assets, restructuring/refinancing scenarios, off-take negotiations, royalty/streaming decisions, and cross-border province-level theses across multiple geological terranes. The roadmap is published in the platform's deferred-roadmap document; case study additions are recorded in the public Audit Log.

Cross-case comparison

Two cross-asset comparison surfaces are published; they serve different purposes.

1. The decision-shape matrix at /case-studies/comparison/ — a side-by-side reading of all five published case studies on fourteen standardised institutional-screening dimensions (commodity, country, resource baseline, FS economics, AISC, mine life, DFI mandate-fit status, screening reading, key risk, recency of material disclosure, decision-readiness confidence, and others). At-a-glance view; preserves decision-shape distinctions rather than forcing common categories that would erase case-specific detail.

2. The portfolio comparison at /case-studies/comparison/portfolio.html — a deeper analyst working surface across the same five dossiers organised by analytical layer: asset profile, bankability decomposition per Methodology §10, downstream-risk substrate, multilateral safeguards framework integration (Component E v1.2), counterparty eligibility, portfolio observations, and methodology cross-links. Designed for the DFI investment-officer / portfolio-manager workflow of comparing pipeline assets against a shared analytical frame rather than reading five separate dossiers sequentially.

The matrix is the entry point; the portfolio comparison is where institutional analysts spend time.

Bring your own question

If you would like the platform shaped against a real deal scenario rather than a published case study, the structured intake page at /intake/ is the on-ramp. Submission is by structured form; Nikesh responds personally within 48 hours with an Afrimintel-shaped screening framework calibrated to your institution-type, jurisdiction, commodity, deal stage, and decision type.

Institutional shadow-screen pilot

For DFIs, multilaterals, sovereign-investment vehicles, pension and infrastructure funds, and comparable institutional capital allocators with a real African mining or critical-minerals-corridor deal in screening, Afrimintel publishes a standing offer at /engagement-protocol/: a 30-day no-fee shadow-screen pilot on one real deal at the institutional partner's choice, producing a parallel diligence artefact for direct comparison against the institution's internal screening output. Terms are published; bandwidth is the binding constraint; pilots are accepted in request-arrival order.

Decision layer — all 18 intelligence-grade assets, one screen →