Mauritania

Mauritania enters 2026 as one of West Africa's most disciplined small economies, freshly minted as an LNG exporter. Real GDP grew about 4.2% in 2025 and is projected to rebound to 4.4% in 2026 as gas ramps up, while inflation eased to roughly 1.5% from 2.5% in 2024. The fiscal position is notably tight for the region — the deficit narrowed to about 0.3% of GDP — reserves cover around 5.6 months of imports, and the ouguiya has held broadly stable near 40 to the dollar. Nominal GDP sits around $14bn, underpinned by an IMF programme the Fund repeatedly cites as on-track.

The investment thesis is a commodity portfolio diversifying into energy and a vast renewables frontier. The transformational event is the BP-operated Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project, which delivered first LNG in February 2025 and its first export cargo that April, reaching nameplate 2.7 mtpa by December and targeting 36 cargoes in 2026. Around it sits a deep resource base: SNIM's iron ore (Africa's second-largest producer), Kinross's Tasiast gold mine, and a fisheries sector worth a third of exports. The longer-horizon bet is green hydrogen — the $40bn AMAN project (CWP), Project Nour (Chariot/TE H2) and Denmark's Megaton Moon collectively underwrite a national ambition of 12.5 Mt of green-hydrogen output by 2035.

The defining risk is execution and exposure — commodity dependence colliding with project delays and regional insecurity. The extractive sector actually contracted ~1.2% in 2025, GTA Phase 2 (~$5bn, +2.5-3 mtpa) has no final investment decision with Senegal publicly frustrated and BP reportedly weighing deprioritisation, and the flagship AMAN hydrogen project paused major work in June 2025 on weak European offtake demand. Overlaying it all is Sahel security spillover: Mauritania hosts some 300,000 Malian refugees, and JNIM activity blockading trade routes near its borders threatens the stability on which the entire investment narrative rests.