Growing Personal Risks for Executives in Gold-rich Mali

Resolute Mining’s chief executive Terry Holohan was detained on Friday in Bamako along with two other employees of the Australian gold producer. The three British citizens are among seven executives of western mining companies to have been held in Mali in the past two months as tensions rise between the industry and the military junta, which has sought to extract more money from the sector since taking power in 2021. The Malian government rewrote the mining code last year to extract higher revenue from the industry, and this summer started to renegotiate companies’ existing contracts under the new law. Several smaller mining companies have already completed the renegotiation but the process has become increasingly acrimonious for larger peers, including Sydney and London-listed Resolute and New York-listed Barrick Gold.

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