CONAKRY – Societe Miniere de Boke, which mines aluminum raw material bauxite in Guinea, signed agreements with the West African nation to spend $3-billion on a railway, an alumina refinery and the development of new mining areas.
The 135 km railway, which will link mining operations to a river terminal, will cost an estimated $1.2-billion and is expected to start operations in 2022, the group said in a statement Monday. The refinery will have capacity of as much as one-million tons a year and require $700-million to $900-million of investment.
Production from the new mining deposits is expected in 2022, with estimated output of ten-million tons in the first year, increasing to 30-million tons in 2024.
Guinea vies with Australia as the biggest exporter to China of bauxite, the raw material used to make alumina and eventually aluminum. SMB is a joint venture owned by Singapore’s Winning Shipping, China’s Shandong Weiqiao and logistics group UMS International. The government of Guinea also holds 10%.
China’s bauxite imports from Guinea will continue to increase in 2019 as new mines ramp up, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Yi Zhu and Anthony Cham Fung Yau said in a Nov. 15 note. Guinea accounted for 40% of China’s bauxite imports of 68.6-million tons in 2017.