Mali’s National Transition Council (CNT) has passed a law ratifying the creation of the Malian Precious Substances Office (OMASP).
The new body is tasked with regulating and centralizing the marketing of gold, particularly from artisanal panning and small-scale mining operations.
The CNT unanimously approved the legislation with 120 votes in favor, ratifying Ordinance No. 2026-013/PT-RM dated April 10, 2026, which laid the groundwork for OMASP, according to details shared by the institution on Tuesday.
Operating under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, this new agency is responsible for regulating and centralizing the trade of gold and other precious substances. It aims to tighten state oversight of mining resources, secure financial flows, and combat illicit parallel markets.
The reform specifically targets gold produced through artisanal panning and small-scale mining—a segment where volumes largely elude official statistics. The government justified the establishment of OMASP by pointing to discrepancies between gold quantities declared within Mali and those recorded by certain importing countries, a gap that highlights smuggling and lost state revenues.
As Mali’s primary export, gold plays a central role in the national economy. According to a Council of Ministers report from March 18, 2026, national production reached 72.227 metric tons in 2022, including 6 tons from artisanal mining. At the time, the sector accounted for 9.2 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and generated 763 billion CFA francs in budget revenues.
The creation of OMASP is part of a broader series of structural reforms launched since 2023 to improve governance across the mining sector. Mali’s new Mining Code has notably increased the state’s potential equity share in mining projects and tightened compliance demands on operators. Furthermore, a comprehensive sector audit successfully recovered roughly 761 billion CFA francs in tax arrears from various mining firms.
These institutional changes arrive amid a downturn in industrial gold production, which fell to 42.2 tons in 2025 from 54.8 tons in 2024, driven primarily by operational hurdles at the Loulo-Gounkoto complex operated by Barrick Gold. Including artisanal gold, total production for 2025 stood at 48.2 tons, falling short of targets set by authorities.
The rollout of OMASP also aligns with Mali’s domestic gold processing strategy. In June 2025, the government broke ground on a gold refinery in Sénou, near Bamako, developed with Russian backing. Designed with an announced capacity of 200 tons per year, the facility aims to improve the traceability of the precious metal, curb raw gold exports, and maximize local value addition.
Moving forward, the implementation of the new office will require clarifying regulatory controls for purchasing offices, collectors, small mines, and exporters. The agency must balance its formalization goals with the socio-economic realities of artisanal mining, which serves as a vital income source for many rural communities while remaining exposed to smuggling, fraud, insecurity, and mining site accidents.
MD/te/Sf/lb/abj/APA