GUINEA has signed an agreement with Societe Miniere de Boke, which mines aluminum raw material bauxite in the West African country, to spend $3bn on a railway, an alumina refinery, and the development of new mining areas, said Bloomberg News.
The 135km railway, which will link mining operations to a river terminal, will cost an estimated $1.2bn and is expected to start operations in 2022, said Bloomberg News citing a statement by the group. The refinery will have capacity of as much as 1 million tons a year and require $700m to $900m of investment, it added.
Production from the new mining deposits is expected in 2022, with estimated output of 10 million tons in the first year, increasing to 30 million tons in 2024, said the newswire.
Despite the growth in economic activity however, Guinea’s bauxite mining heartland has been racked by unrest in recent years, fuelled by the frustrations of the local population, according to a study by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The report focused on Guinea’s top two bauxite producers, Societe Miniere de Boke (SMB) and Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG), with the former saying there were some deficiencies in the findings.
“The findings published by HRW highlight some deficiencies which, for the most part, did not escape our attention and for which numerous corrective actions have been taken since 2017,” MD of SMB Frederic Bouzigues told Reuters.
