US Development Finance Corporation Commits $414M to Niger’s Dasa Uranium Project
The board of the US International Development Finance Corporation approved on 16 September 2026 a debt facility of up to $414.2 million for Global Atomic’s Dasa uranium project in Niger, the largest US development-finance commitment yet directed at an African critical-minerals project, according to Al Jazeera.
What the financing covers
Global Atomic holds an 80% stake in Dasa, with the remaining 20% held by the Nigerien state through Société Minière de Dasa. The project targets commercial production in the second half of 2028, with a projected output of 68.1 million pounds of U₃O₈ over 23 years, per La Nouvelle Tribune. Roughly 700 people were already working on site as of May, and offtake agreements currently cover 11% of the mine plan. Disbursement of the DFC facility remains contingent on Dasa securing a workable route to export yellowcake from a landlocked country, along with other unspecified conditions, according to a Discovery Alert analysis.
The mechanism: what changed for the state’s share
Niger’s mining code entitles the state to take up to 40% equity in any uranium project by statute, split between a 15% free-carried interest and a 25% tranche it must pay to acquire. Dasa’s current 20% state stake sits below that ceiling, leaving room for Niamey to exercise its option to increase its share as the project advances.
The actors: an exit and an entrance
The DFC’s commitment lands months after Niger’s junta completed its break with France’s Orano. Niamey nationalised Orano’s Somaïr mine at Arlit in June 2025, cancelled the company’s Imouraren concession in May 2026 for non-payment of fees, and in August 2026 granted the Imouraren-area permit that had belonged to Orano to a new state entity, Tsumco SA, according to Bloomberg. An arbitral tribunal at the World Bank’s ICSID has separately ordered Niger not to transfer stockpiled Somaïr uranium to third parties while Orano’s claims are pending.
Niger has been governed by a military junta since the 2023 coup, has left ECOWAS to join the Alliance of Sahel States alongside Mali and Burkina Faso, and has deepened security ties with Russia. The DFC deal is the first major US financial commitment to Niger since American troops withdrew from the country two years ago.
The implication
Washington is now competing directly with Paris and Moscow for access to Nigerien uranium, a resource the US Development Finance Corporation and the Trump administration have signalled as strategically important for energy and defence supply chains. That a Russia-aligned junta that has expelled a French state-linked operator is simultaneously courting US development finance suggests Niamey is treating resource nationalism and diversified foreign partnerships as complementary, not contradictory, policies.
What remains uncertain
The DFC’s approval is a financing commitment, not a disbursed loan, and the announcement does not specify which conditions must still be met. Niger’s export-route problem, unresolved since Orano’s own shipments were blocked by closed borders with Benin in 2024, has not been solved by this deal, and the ICSID dispute over Orano’s Somaïr uranium remains open. Whether Niamey exercises its option to raise its Dasa stake toward the 40% ceiling, and how DFC’s conditions on export logistics are ultimately met, are the next points to watch.