This Weekend Issue brings together the most consequential African extractives developments of the past several days, including developments that broke late on Friday and important earlier stories that warranted deeper treatment.

The common thread is not geology.

Nigeria already has deep-water discoveries. South Africa still has prospective offshore acreage. Guinea has an established gold industry and underexplored belts. What is changing is the architecture around those resources.

Nigeria is altering fiscal terms to make offshore projects more competitive for globally mobile capital. South Africa has shown that an exploration right can lose its value years after it was granted if the administrative process underneath it does not withstand judicial scrutiny. Guinea is moving state participation earlier in the mining cycle by placing its national mining company inside the vehicle through which new gold opportunities will be identified.

Resource endowment creates the opportunity.Fiscal competitiveness, legal durability and ownership structure increasingly determine whether that opportunity becomes an investable asset.