GUINEA has signed an agreement with Sycamore Mining in which the Cyprus-based miner will invest $40m re-opening Kiniero, a gold mine situated in the east of the country.
Citing Guinea’s mines minister, Abdoulaye Magassouba, Reuters said Sycamore would set up a Guinea entity to deliver a feasibility study within 180 days after which the government will grant a mining licence. “Sycamore’s was the winning bid, and we signed an outline agreement today,” said Magassouba.
Sycamore will put $5m into the entity and invest a total of $35m investigating and expanding the mine previously owned by Canada’s Semafo. The mine was placed under care and maintenance in 2014 and then sold to New Dawn Mining, said Reuters.
“We aim to redevelop this plant as fast as possible, by restarting the mine with the strongest possible production,” Sycamore Mining CEO, Matthieu Sharples, said as he signed the agreement in the capital, Conakry. Kiniero lies 591km east of Conakry.
On November 14, Guinea awarded a consortium consisting of French, Singaporean and Chinese interests the right to develop a $14bn section of its Simandou iron ore deposit.
Guinea’s government required bidders to build a 650km railway and deepwater port to transport the ore from the country’s remote southeastern corner to the coast for export, deterring some miners from bidding.
The winning consortium includes Société Minière de Boké (SMB) as well as Singapore’s Winning Shipping and Guinean government interests.
It committed to develop blocks 1 and 2 of the largest known deposit of its kind, holding more than 2 billion tons of high-grade iron ore.
