Table of Contents
When TotalEnergies pulled out of Burkina Faso last year, the French oil major left behind more than a brand. It left a network of roughly 170 fuel stations, supply depots and distribution infrastructure that still anchor a significant chunk of the country's petroleum supply. Now two of the country's most powerful businessmen are fighting over who actually controls it.
Mahamadou Bonkoungou, widely regarded as Burkina Faso's richest man, and Idrissa Nassa, the banking magnate behind Coris Bank International, have been locked in a dispute for weeks over TotalEnergies' former downstream assets, according to a report by Africa Intelligence. The details have been closely held, but the stakes are not hard to read.
Nassa appeared to have locked up the prize. His investment vehicle, Coris Invest Group, signed the acquisition of TotalEnergies Marketing Burkina in Dakar in September 2025, a ceremony Nassa attended personally. By December, the company had a new name: Barka Energies. Rebranded and relaunched in Ouagadougou, it inherited the full retail infrastructure TotalEnergies had built over more than two decades, including the stations, the supply chain and the customer base.
But the contest, it turns out, was not over.
Bonkoungou, 58, built his fortune in construction. His group, EBOMAF, founded in 1989, has accumulated more than $3 billion in road and infrastructure contracts across West Africa, operating in Burkina Faso, Benin, Guinea, Togo and Ivory Coast. He has since expanded into banking through IB Bank and IB Holding, aviation through Liz Aviation and the private jet charter firm Liza Transport, machinery distribution through Bonkoungou Distribution, and healthcare with the Princess Sarah Clinic in Ouagadougou. The fuel sector represents a logical next move for a conglomerate built on construction, heavy equipment and transport logistics, where petroleum supply touches nearly every operation.
Nassa, for his part, runs one of West Africa's most formidable financial empires. Coris Bank International, which he founded in 2008 with just $3 million in capital, has grown into a regional powerhouse managing roughly $9 billion in assets across all eight West African Economic and Monetary Union countries, as well as Guinea, Chad and Cabo Verde. In 2025, he was named CEO of the Year at the Africa CEO Forum. Beyond banking, Nassa has pushed into mining through Nioko Resources, which holds a majority stake in Hummingbird Resources and controls gold mines in Mali and Guinea. His $47 million stake in Orezone Gold's Bomboré project in Burkina Faso added another layer. The TotalEnergies acquisition was a deliberate step into the energy sector, executed through Coris Invest Group and presented as part of a broader push toward economic sovereignty.
The conflict between the two men puts that framing under pressure. Both are deeply connected to the Burkinabe state, and both have a track record of operating in sectors the government considers strategic. Fuel is firmly in that category. It touches transport, food prices, mining operations, generator-powered businesses and government logistics. Control over a distribution network that accounts for a substantial share of national supply translates into leverage, and in the current political climate, leverage carries weight.
People close to the sector say that is why the battle has drawn attention beyond boardrooms. Burkina Faso is navigating a period of security stress and military-led governance, and the state has signaled it will watch closely any commercial moves that can affect basic living costs or national resilience. A private contest over assets this consequential rarely stays purely private.
The broader pattern is familiar across West Africa. As foreign multinationals reassess risk and exit certain markets, local capital rushes in. The fights that follow increasingly pit domestic conglomerates against each other rather than global majors, and they play out with a mixture of legal maneuvering, political access and raw financial muscle.
In Ouagadougou, the TotalEnergies exit has become exactly that kind of test case. Barka Energies is up and running. But who ultimately controls it, and on what terms, remains an open question.
