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EITI-C Simandou — Targeted Disclosure-Data Deepening

Methodology sub-page · Effective 17 May 2026 (v1.1.2 deploy) · Editorial responsibility: Nikesh Patel · Status: SCAFFOLD v1 — every disclosure field [Pending — verify against EITI publication]; primary-source verification is post-v1.1.2 cycle work.

§1 — Scope and rationale

Three editorial choices define EITI-C v1 scope:

1. Targeted, not generalised. EITI-C ships as a disclosure-data layer on named contexts only — at v1.1.2, the December 2025 Simandou contract disclosures (Guinea, Fe, West African Craton). The 29-country EITI status-lookup remains unchanged across all other jurisdictions; the 30/25/25/20 country-composite weighting per §03 is unaffected by EITI-C; the IC composite for West African Craton is not modified by this addition.
2. Per-context deepening, not per-asset surfacing. Simandou is not a worked dossier in the institutional-grade dossier set (the v1.1.2 worked set remains Kamoa-Kakula, Kabanga, Manono, Loulo-Gounkoto, and Lobito Corridor). EITI-C attaches as a narrow disclosure-data block on the existing Guinea / Simandou platform context (the COUNTRY_COVERAGE Guinea 25% entry + the West African Craton opportunity field).
3. Lobito Corridor EITI-C deferred to v1.2 Phase 2. The 2025 Lobito Corridor EITI work is structurally additive on the same pattern; Lobito's EITI-C panel ships in the v1.2 Phase 2 cycle alongside the deeper Lobito Bankability + Downstream Risk panel build cycle (Lobito Corridor is a system-level multi-jurisdiction corridor exposure and warrants its own dedicated turn). A generalised per-contract EITI disclosure surface across the broader EITI member set remains deferred pending a user or acquirer signal that one is wanted; not dated to v1.3 specifically.

The rationale for targeted-not-generalised: EITI's per-contract disclosure landscape is heterogeneous (different country chapters publish disclosures at different granularities, on different cycles, in different formats). A generalised surface requires a published per-contract field-structure standard surviving external review, plus per-publication verification discipline scaling to the full EITI member set. Neither precondition is met at v1.1.2; pulling Simandou forward as a single named context preserves the discipline.

§2 — Simandou context

Simandou is a four-block iron ore project in southeastern Guinea (Forécariah and Faranah regions; West African Craton geological province). The Simandou North blocks (1 + 2) are operated by the Baowu Winning Consortium; Simandou South blocks (3 + 4) are operated by Rio Tinto via the Simfer joint venture with Chinalco. First shipment completed 2 December 2025 (Baowu Winning Consortium, 200 kt to China per public disclosure). 2026 production guidance per public sources: 5–20 MMt ramp; full ramp toward 120 MMt by 2030 per project documentation.

The Government of Guinea holds equity stakes in Simandou operations under multi-decade infrastructure-and-mining concession architecture. The December 2025 contract disclosures published via Guinea's EITI National Secretariat are the substrate for this targeted deepening. EITI is cited here as a public-source transparency-disclosure institution per its published Standard and country-chapter reporting. No commercial or partnership relationship is implied or claimed between Afrimintel and EITI, the EITI International Secretariat, NRGI, the Government of Guinea, the Guinea EITI National Secretariat, Rio Tinto, Baowu, the Baowu Winning Consortium, Chinalco, or Simfer.

§3 — Simandou disclosure-data block (scaffold)

The disclosure-data block below is the working structure for the December 2025 Simandou EITI disclosures. Field groups are organised by the four-category schema EITI publishes for contract-level disclosures: fiscal terms, ownership and control, payments to government, and contract architecture. Every field ships [Pending — verify against EITI publication]. Source target identifies the EITI publication and supporting documents that the populate-phase will open against.

Block 1 — Fiscal terms

Block 2 — Ownership and control

Block 3 — Payments to government (2024 reporting year scaffold)

Block 4 — Contract architecture and amendments

§4 — Populate-phase workflow

The populate-phase moves fields from Pending to Sourced through this sequence:

1. Open the publication. Open the December 2025 Simandou EITI contract disclosure as published by the Guinea EITI National Secretariat. Confirm publication URL, date, and version.
2. Field-structure confirmation. Walk the §3 working structure against the actual publication. Where the actual field structure differs (e.g. EITI publishes royalty in tranches not in a single rate; state participation is held via multiple SPVs not a single entity), update §3 to match the disclosed structure. Field-structure changes are non-trivial and merit an audit log entry per §10.9.
3. Per-field population. For each field, capture the disclosed value, the precise location in the publication (page / paragraph / table reference), and the publication date. Move the field from Pending to Sourced with the citation attached.
4. Cross-reference verification. For load-bearing values (royalty rates; state participation share; aggregate payments to government), cross-reference against at least one secondary primary source (operator regulatory filings, gazette publication, concession-agreement public summary) per the Hallucination Guard protocol.
5. Surfacing. Material disclosure facts (e.g. a published royalty schedule with concrete rates) propagate to the Guinea / Simandou platform context surface — the COUNTRY_COVERAGE Guinea action field and the West African Craton opportunity field. Audit log entry records the surface propagation.
6. Counterparty Extension preservation. Throughout, no claim of commercial relationship with any party named in the EITI disclosure is implied; EITI publication is cited per its published terms; named parties (Rio Tinto, Baowu, Chinalco, Government of Guinea, Simfer, Compagnie du TransGuinéen, etc.) appear strictly as publication subjects.

§5 — Relationship to broader Afrimintel surfaces

EITI status-lookup unchanged. Afrimintel's 29-country EITI status-lookup (Compliant / Validated / Candidate / Suspended / Not-yet-EITI) remains as currently surfaced across the country and methodology layers. The 30/25/25/20 Fraser/TI/RGI/EITI country-composite weighting per §03 is unaffected by EITI-C. The IC composite values in §07 Table 4 do not change as a result of this EITI-C addition.

§10 bankability and downstream-risk layer cross-references. The Simandou disclosure-data block, once populated, refines the geopolitical-risk substrate at §10.2 dimension 3 (Geopolitical risk — EITI fiscal-terms disclosure substrate) for the Guinea / Simandou context. §10.8 deferral item 4 is updated in the v1.1.2 cycle to reflect the targeted-vs-generalised framing this page establishes.

Discount-rate decomposition framework. EITI-C disclosure-data does not directly modify the Discount Rate Derivation Framework v1 components. EITI-disclosed fiscal terms feed institutional users' DCF assumptions (royalty rates, corporate income tax, withholding); the platform's discount-rate components are unaffected. Where EITI-disclosed contract architecture surfaces tenure or settlement-state facts material to πt or πd classification on a specific asset, the audit log records the propagation.

§6 — Scope, forward-state, and discipline notice

What this sub-page does at v1.1.2 publication:

• Publishes the targeted EITI-C deepening structure for Simandou (December 2025 contract disclosures).
• Establishes the Quality Standard three-state discipline on every disclosure field (Pending until primary-source verified; Sourced when verified with citation; Absent if EITI publishes no disclosure on that field).
• Names the populate-phase workflow (§4) and the relationship to broader Afrimintel surfaces (§5).
• Reinforces the targeted-vs-generalised framing: 29-country status-lookup unchanged; 30/25/25/20 weighting unchanged.

What this sub-page does NOT do at v1.1.2 publication:

• Does not assert any specific disclosure value (every field Pending).
• Does not include Lobito Corridor EITI-C — deferred to v1.2 Phase 2.
• Does not establish a generalised per-contract EITI disclosure surface across the broader EITI member set — deferred indefinitely pending user or acquirer signal that one is wanted.
• Does not modify the IC composite or §07 Table 4 Province Score for West African Craton.
• Does not assert any commercial relationship with EITI, NRGI, the Government of Guinea, or any operator named in the Simandou disclosures.

Forward-state. Methodological precondition for any future generalised per-contract EITI disclosure surface: published per-contract field-structure standard surviving external review, plus per-publication verification discipline scaling to the full EITI member set. Until those preconditions are met, EITI-C remains a targeted-context layer.

Editorial responsibility: Nikesh Patel · Quality Standard three-state discipline applied throughout · Counterparty Extension preservation: no claim that EITI, NRGI, any government, or any operator named has reviewed or approved this scaffold · Audit Log Protocol applied: EITI-C Simandou v1 publication is the v1.1.2 audit-log substrate. EITI-C v1 publication established 17 May 2026 alongside the v1.1.2 reconciliation minor release.