Canadian mining company Allied Gold sold a minority stake in its assets to Chinese company Zijin Gold International following prolonged negotiations. According to Allied Gold, after the completion of strategic investments, Zijin Gold now owns approximately 9.2 percent of the company's issued and outstanding common shares.
This marks the latest and most significant development in the history related to investments from the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopian army bases supporting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and the vast territory of Ethiopia bordering Sudan, which can now be actively developed for gold mining.
The agreement, valued at just under $300 million, grants Zijin partial ownership of a portfolio that includes mining sites in Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Kurmuk concession in western Ethiopia. The Kurmuk site is located in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia, where at least one military base used by RSF paramilitaries, supplied by the UAE—which is also a major buyer of Ethiopian gold—is situated.
This site is located about 20 kilometers from a Sudanese settlement of the same name, where mass graves were discovered last Monday, presumably containing bodies of people killed by the RSF on the same day the deal was announced. The region, which recently experienced civilian displacement and conflict, is known for informal, semi-illegal, and semi-mechanized mineral extraction, including the area designated for Allied Gold's exploration.
Publicly, the Canadian company expresses optimism regarding the Ethiopian site, stating plans to commence operations in August and produce between 240,000 and 270,000 ounces of gold in 2027, amounting to about $1 billion.
UAE and China Investments in Ethiopia
This deal concludes a year-long saga involving two failed acquisition attempts: first by an Emirati company last year, and then by Zijin itself. Initially, this year, Zijin planned to acquire Allied Gold entirely for approximately $4 billion, but the deal fell through due to a lack of approval from Chinese regulators. After abandoning the full buyout, the parties moved towards partial investments.
The completed agreement will result in a joint Chinese-Emirati presence in Ethiopia's mining sector, as Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the UAE's sovereign wealth fund, has been a major shareholder in Zijin Mining, the parent company of Zijin Gold International, since 2022. The UAE also held significant financial interest in Allied Gold.
In February 2025, the Canadian company announced a deal worth half a billion dollars, providing a 50 percent stake in its mining assets to the little-known Emirati company Ambrosia, led by prominent Emirati businessman Ahmed Amer Al Amiri, who manages the Al Amry group from Abu Dhabi. However, several months later, Allied Gold reported that the deal with Ambrosia collapsed due to unmet conditions and rising gold prices.
In January, Zijin and Allied Gold jointly announced their intention to organize a buyout of the Canadian company, but this deal was ultimately halted. Several months after this announcement, quarterly reports showed that ADIA had invested about $680 million in Zijin Mining, placing the UAE's sovereign fund among Zijin's top ten shareholders.
Further deals are possible, as Allied Gold CEO Peter Marron expressed willingness to sell more of his company to more than one buyer if the offer meets his valuation. Currently, Allied Gold's immediate plans involve using the transaction funds to expand operations across all three of the company's mining sites, including 'operational optimization, completion, and production scaling in Kurmuk.'
Middle East Eye asked Allied Gold whether it could guarantee that its new partners would not attempt to use gold from the Kurmuk mine to support militants in Sudan, but received no response on this matter. The Ethiopian Minister of Mines welcomed the 'expansion of investments in gold production, critical minerals, oil, and fertilizers.' Zijin Gold did not respond to Middle East Eye's questions. Both the UAE and Ethiopia deny any involvement in the war in Sudan.
Proximity to the War in Sudan
Due to the proximity of the Kurmuk mine to both a major logistics hub for the RSF in Assosa, Ethiopia, and the front line in Sudan's Blue Nile state, the new acquisition involving investors affiliated with governments supporting the RSF could become a strategic success for the RSF. The Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia is a high-security area. Its capital, Assosa, as MEE previously reported this year, is a center for major logistics used by the UAE and Ethiopia to train and arm RSF fighters who have been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces since April 2023. The site is also located about 100 kilometers from the Grand Renaissance Dam on the Nile River.
It is unclear what impact mining activities involving investors linked to the governments of the UAE and China will have on war-torn Sudan, where three years of conflict have led to the displacement of millions of people and created what UN officials have called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Both states are accused of inciting bloodshed and facilitating the transfer of weapons to the RSF, which has committed numerous atrocities, including sexual violence and mass killings of civilians, which UN investigators consider genocide.
The UAE, in particular, uses illegal gold mining to bolster its support for the RSF, which has its own gold mining company, al-Junaid. This group has amassed significant wealth through smuggling gold from areas under its control in Sudan to Dubai. Human rights researchers and diplomatic sources have long pointed to the UAE as a major hub of the Sudanese gold conflict.
One Sudanese gold trader who also runs a small mine told MEE: 'Regarding gold, in most of these processes—whether it is RSF territory or SAF—the final destination of the gold is still the UAE, especially the gold market in Dubai. It passes through many brokers and intermediaries.'
Sudanese gold trade expert Sulaiman Baldo told MEE: 'Gold production in Sudan is dominated—up to 85 or 90 percent—by artisanal miners. Therefore, gold is bought by traders, and the export and smuggling of gold are mainly carried out by private individuals. These individuals are wholesalers who can buy gold from artisanal miners and smuggle it into the United Arab Emirates.'
China officially maintains a policy of neutrality in the Sudanese civil war but has taken no action to stop the UAE from supplying complex Chinese weaponry, including howitzers, heavy machine guns, and armed drones, to the RSF. This occurs despite the continuous extension of the UN arms embargo on Sudan and demands from the Sudanese government for Beijing to take measures to restrict the flow of its weapons into Sudan. Canadian mining companies also have a controversial history of pursuing interests in mineral extraction amid conflicts in East Africa, including the deadly Tigray War in Ethiopia from 2020 to 2022, during which hundreds of thousands of people died.