VIGIL CONSILIUM
Context. Not headlines.
Coverage · Central Sahel

Mining company · Mining

SOMAÏR

The operator of the Arlit uranium mine — 63.4 per cent Orano, 36.6 per cent the state's SOPAMIN on paper, under Nigerien operational control since December 2024 and declared nationalised in June 2025.

Status uncertain Mixed ownership Announcements only

Assessed as of
2026-08
Last reviewed
2026-10-03

AssessmentModerate confidence

No financials and no forecasts. A record carries what a published source states about an organisation, its published facilities and its dated claims, with each claim kept apart by kind. Nothing here is a view on any company.

1Open the module map
Locator — land outline from Natural Earth 110m (public domain); 1 place this record names, at the coordinates the module already publishes. No routes, boundaries, control or activity are drawn.

What this organisation is

SOMAÏR operates the Arlit mine in northern Niger, the asset at the centre of the state's dispute with its French operator. Niger is the world's fourth-largest uranium producer, around 6.9 per cent of global output. The French company Orano halted output at Arlit in October 2024 amid financial strain; the mine passed to Nigerien operational control in December 2024; and in June 2025 the government announced nationalisation, stating that Orano had taken 86.3 per cent of production between 1971 and 2024 — the state's own figure. An ICSID tribunal has ordered Niger not to sell or transfer the stockpiled uranium pending Orano's claims; Niger has announced on state television that it intends to sell it anyway, asserting a legitimate right to dispose of national resources, and Orano has condemned a reported shipment as illegal. The dispute is unresolved and is being conducted in public.

The organisation through which the state's claim on its resources is being tested against an international tribunal, with the stockpile as the object.

Confidence: Moderate As of 2026-08Reviewed 2026-10-03

Official name: Société des Mines de l'Aïr

Published facilities

Each is a marker the module already publishes; the relationship is this record’s own claim, with its own grade and source.

Dated claims — announced against delivered

Every claim on this record is an announcement or a target. Nothing here is recorded as commissioned or delivered.

2026-08Announcement Confidence: Moderate

The state's stated intention, on state television, to sell the stockpiled uranium notwithstanding the ICSID order not to.

Sources: Established international media reporting

Systems it belongs to

SystemGold and uranium

Owners, controllers and arrangements

ProfileNiger — CNSP Transitional Authorities

Watch questions bearing on it

What remains unknown

  • Whether any uranium has in fact been sold or shipped is contested between the parties and is not established by the module.
  • Output since the October 2024 halt is not published in a form the module has read.
Sensitivity: public-contextual Confidence: Moderate Sources: Established international media reporting · Al Jazeera English↗ · World Bank country data (Mali)↗ Methodology Corrections

Assessed as of — 2026-08 Last reviewed — 2026-10-03