Wrong:
- The Lompoul desert is an artificial dune, created in the 90s to open up a new tourist activity during the Paris-Dakar Rally.
True:
- The route of the mobile mine, designed according to the mining plan validated by the Senegalese authorities, passes through the Lompoul desert.
- The alteration of the landscape caused by our operations is temporary: Eramet Grande Côte remodels and rehabilitates the sand dunes in the wake of its mine. This commitment is enshrined both in the contract between the company and the Senegalese government and in the Eramet Group’s CSR roadmap.
Wrong:
- Eramet Grande Côte uses no chemicals to mine the mineralized sand found in the dunes.
- The extraction process is purely mechanical. It is based on sand suction and centrifugal sorting at the rear of the mobile dredger. Over 98.5% of the sand pumped out is immediately discharged, with no alteration, at the back of the site, where it is dried and stabilized.
- As soon as the sand has been extracted, our teams restore the dunes to bring their topography as close as possible to their original state. Next comes the rehabilitation and revegetation phase.
Wrong:
- We mine mineralized sands found in the dunes. The dredger does not operate near the sea. To the east, the Niayes cordon is not affected either. The impact on market gardening is therefore limited.
- Impacted areas are revegetated as the mine progresses, and eventually returned to the Senegalese government. By 2022, the site had initiated the land restitution cycle with 85 hectares returned to the government, only eight years after the launch of Eramet Grande Côte’s operations. The Direction des Eaux et Forêts then decides on the final use of the land.
- By the end of the year, Eramet Grande Côte plans to return almost 1,000 hectares of rehabilitated sites to the Senegalese government.
True:
- When land or dune edges used by market gardeners are impacted by the passage of the mobile dredger, a compensation scheme, managed from A to Z by the Commission départementale de Recensement et Évaluation des Impacts, is set up. This commission, chaired by the prefect, is made up of representatives of the departmental services, local authorities, communities directly affected and Eramet Grande Côte employees.
- The amount of these compensations is determined based on specific criteria and varies from one producer to another. Factors influencing the compensation include the size of the impacted fields, existing investments or assets in these fields, additional investments made on these lands such as buildings, irrigation systems, boreholes, ponds or wells.
Wrong:
- Eramet Grande Côte’s activities have no impact on the groundwater used by farmers and communities.
- The mine has a pumping system located at a depth of over 450m, well below the groundwater used by farmers.
True:
- The mobile mine needs water to operate. It floats on an artificial water pond.
- The dredger sucks up raw sand and water, which it sends to the floating plant where mineralized and unmineralized sands are then separated. The water contained in the unmineralized sands is recovered by surface pumping along the mine and discharged into the pond.
- The process increases the amount of water in the surface groundwater by pumping water from the deep groundwater into the pond. The pond water then infiltrates into the surface groundwater. This benefits market-gardening activities.
- A continuous monitoring system is in place to ensure the levels and quality of the surface and deep groundwater. Results are regularly transmitted to the relevant authorities.
Wrong:
- Eramet Grande Côte has generated 149 million euros in economic benefits for Senegal in 2023. We employ around 2,000 employees and contractors, 97% of whom are Senegalese. In terms of local content, 77% of Eramet Grande Côte’s purchases are made in Senegal. According to a ranking by the EITI (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative), an independent body, we are currently the fourth largest mining contributor to the state budget.
- Each year, a budget of 400,000 euros is spent on community investments, in line with the Mining Social Program budget set out in the mining agreement.
- In addition, in October 2024, Eramet Grande Côte launched BUILD, a project with a strong societal impact, benefitting people living near the mining concession in the Louga region. The project aims to create and develop income-generating economic activities in the market gardening, fishing and livestock sectors.
True:
- Our mine is inherently mobile, covering an area from the south of the village of Fass Boye to the north of the village of Lompoul, crossing the 4 communes of Darou Khoudoss, Kab Gaye, Diokoul Diawrigne and Thieppe. Since the launch of its operations in 2017, Eramet Grande Côte has been carrying out physical and economic resettlement on an ongoing basis, notably in the Darou Khoudoss area (between 2017 and 2022) and in the communes of Kab Gaye (2023) and Thieppe (2024-2028), located in the Louga region.
True:
- After ten years of operation, the mine’s route, defined in agreement with the national authorities, now crosses a tourist zone, the Lompoul artificial desert.
Wrong:
- The impact of this route has been anticipated for several years, and Eramet Grande Côte has voluntarily decided to create l’Oasis du Sénégal, to transform this negative impact into a positive opportunity for tourism development. In addition to compensating tourist operators on the mining concession, Eramet Grande Côte has gone beyond its duty as a responsible mining company by imagining and financing a tourist site that is unique in Senegal.
- This 3-million-euro project, for which the technical documentation has been submitted to the relevant authorities, SAPCO, is designed to relocate tourism activities from the Lompoul artificial desert. It has now been completed and is in the process of being handed over to the Senegalese authorities.
- The 544-hectare site includes a 2,000 m² lake and an 8-hectare palm grove. It is intended to preserve existing jobs and create new ones through a more diversified tourism offering.
Wrong:
- Unfortunately, illegal immigration was already present in the area long before mining activities began.
- For ten years, Eramet Grande Côte’s operations have been creating local jobs. Today, we have around 2,000 employees and contractors, 97% of whom are Senegalese.
- 19 Economic Interest Groupings (EIG) have been created, benefiting some 2,850 people.
- Eramet Grande Côte contributes to the economic development of the region and Senegal, with economic spin-offs of 149 million euros in 2023 (salaries, subcontracting, purchasing, taxes, community contributions, etc.).
Wrong:
- In 2023, Eramet Grande Côte paid out €25 million in taxes and dividends.
- Transparency is one of our corporate values. Eramet Grande Côte follows the standards of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, as does the entire Eramet Group.
- In its EITI 2023 report, currently being finalized, the EITI confirms that Grande Côte Operations SA has submitted all its certified financial statements, as in previous years.
Wrong:
- The pay gap between Senegalese and non-national workers is not of this order.
True:
- Eramet Grande Côte’s mining activities are complex and highly specific. It requires know-how acquired at other mining sites over many years. International manpower with the experience and expertise needed to operate the plant is scarce. These highly qualified profiles come at a price.
- Eramet is committed to developing skills and promoting local talent. For example, the site’s General Manager, Frédéric Zanklan, is one of the Senegalese talents trained and developed by the Group outside Senegal.
Wrong:
- The images circulating since late November 2024 on social media are a crude montage made by Internet users from images that had nothing to do with Eramet Grande Côte’s activities.
Wrong:
- Eramet Grande Côte operates under a mining concession granted by the Senegalese authorities.
- Eramet Grande Côte is the first Senegalese mine to systematically return reclaimed and revegetated land to the Senegalese state. The State then decides on the allocation of this land.