Ghana’s Black Volta gold mine standoff: How a $100m transaction ended up in London’s courts

Yet the Black Volta Gold Project has become the centre of a cross-continental legal fight, one that now runs through an international arbitration tribunal in London, the High Court of England and Wales, and the Ghanaian government.

Supporters frame Black Volta as a landmark case of indigenous ownership, potentially the first large-scale gold mine financed and built by a wholly Ghanaian firm, while foreign investors and some analysts have voiced concern about the message the episode sends about contract enforcement and the security of foreign investment in Africa's leading gold producer.

E&P, through its legal department, has disputed the premise entirely, telling reporters that the firm is neither occupying the Black Volta site nor operating the mine or extracting its resources, and that it has instructed lawyers to seek to set aside the English court's order.