STORY: Around 30 commercial ships dropped anchor off the coast of Gabon on Wednesday (August 30) after military officers said they had seized power and closed the borders.

It's a sign of how West and Central Africa's latest coup could have market repercussions.

Gabon is oil rich - though at 200,000 barrels of crude a day it is the second smallest OPEC producer.

TotalEnergies, which has 350 staff in the country, did not immediately respond to a question on whether its operations could be affected.

The French oil giant said the safety of its employees and operations in the country was "its main priority".

Gabon accounted for 0.6% of the company's oil and gas output in 2022.

Assala Energy, which is wholly owned by Carlyle Group, reported that its oil production has been unaffected.

However, French miner Eramet said it had suspended its operations.

The company is the world's largest producer of manganese ore thanks to its Moanda mine in Gabon.

Eramet shares fell 18% on Wednesday morning.

Also down - Gabon's dollar-denominated bonds.

They lost as much as 14 cents before some recovery.

The 2025 maturity fell the most before recovering about 5 cents to trade down 9.571 cents on the dollar.

That was still the biggest fall since the global health crisis market rout of March 2020.

Charlie Robertson, head of macro strategy at FIM partners, said the immediate risk to bondholders was sanctions.

"Sanctions on Mali didn't have much effect because Mali wasn't that interconnected with the global economy," he said. "But if you sanction Gabon, does that complicate payments? I imagine it will."

Gabon also completed a $436 million "debt for nature" swap earlier this month where it exchanged parts of the 2025 and 2031 Eurobonds for a so-called "blue bond" maturing in 2038.

The blue bond, which is meant to generate savings for marine conservation, fell 2.052 cents on the dollar.

It has political risk insurance from the U.S. Development Finance Corporation.