ECONOMY-GUINEA: Foreign Firms Scramble for Iron, Bauxite

By Saliou Samb Reprint | | Print |

Saliou Samb

CONAKRY, Nov 8 2004 (IPS) - Environmentalists have reacted with guarded caution to announcements of new plans to mine more bauxite and iron in Guinea. The plans were released after conclusion of the International Forum on the Mining Sector (FISM) held in this West African country last month.

Guinea Ecologie, the only non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Guinea working in this area, was not invited to the meeting, according officials.

‘’We were not at the FISM. Nevertheless, if all the practices the big mining companies have already agreed to abandon continue to hold, we’ll have little reason for worry. If not, there will be obvious environmental problems,’’ Mamadou Saliou Diallo, Guinea Ecologie’s coordinator, told IPS. He admitted, though, that he is ‘’concerned’’.

The meeting, held in the northeastern city of Boffa, about 130 kilometres from the Guinean capital Conakry, attracted multinational corporations such as Alcoa (the United States), Alcan (Canada), Rio Tinto (Britain) and EuroNimba with ambitious mining projects. It is hoped that these projects will stimulate Guinea’s economy, which is cash-strapped but rich in natural resources.

Alcoa Guinea general-director, Ibrahima Danso told IPS that his company wants ‘’to build a billion-dollar alumina refinery capable of processing 1.5 million metric tonnes per year in Kamsar, Boke,’’ in the north of the country, about 300 kilometres from Conakry.

Alcoa and Alcan already own a bauxite plant in the Boke area. Known as the Guinea Bauxite Company (CBG), it is the world’s biggest exporter of bauxite at 12 million tonnes a year.

‘’Once the bauxite is extracted from the substrata, teams of people go out and plant trees to restore the natural environment,’’ claimed Bachir Diallo, assistant director of the Sangaredi mine (also in the Boke area), which also belongs to the Guinea Bauxite Company.

There are fears that if the companies use dynamite in the construction of their mines, they will disturb the ecology of the wildlife living in the targeted areas.

‘’Dynamiting frightens animals and drives them away. It’s one of our primary concerns about mining projects. Take, for example, the viviparous toads of Mount Nimba, species which are unique to this southern region. They are unable to live outside of their natural environment,’’ said Ibrahima Sory Conte, of Guinea Ecologie.

Global Alumina Corporation (GAC), based in New York, also plans to build a two-billion-dollar refinery with an annual capacity of 2.8 million tonnes in the Sangaredi area.

EuroNimba and Rio Tinto want to develop iron mining at Mount Nimba (which straddles the Guinea, Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire border) and in the Simandou Mountain Range. They plan to spend more than five billion dollars on this project.

The Simandou Range is a 100-kilometre-long mountain chain in Guinea’s southeast. Rio Tinto has discovered deposits that it estimates contain one billion metric tons of exceptionally pure (66 percent) deposits of iron ore there.

EuroNimba and Rio Tinto have begun negotiations to construct a 1,000-kilometre rail link between the country’s south and the deepwater port of Matakan, in the west, to transport the extracted minerals.

‘’Presently, we’re trying to at least minimise environmental damage, because there’s no such thing as zero risk,’’ Saliou Diallo, of Guinea Ecologie, explained.

More than 40 percent of Guinea’s people live below the poverty line of less than a dollar a day. In addition, only 16 percent of Guineans have access to electricity, according to figures released by the World Bank this year.

Mining company initiatives may be stymied by the country’s poor electrical supply. Guinea is hoping that a 2.5-billion-dollar plan to build a dam on the Konkoure River will resolve that problem.

‘’We cannot take the chance of fumbling this opportunity at a time when we have to fulfil people’s basic needs. In addition, the price of alumina and iron are looking quite good on the international market. We just hope that authorities are not just talking and that concrete plans materialise,’’ said Jacqueline Soumah, a Conakry-based economist.

Since early 2004, steel prices have risen 40 percent, and are expected to rise another 20 percent by the end of the year. This is mostly due to strong demand from China, according to the Oct. 28 edition of ‘’Les Echos’’, a daily newspaper published in France.

Rio Tinto has already requested and obtained a Rapid Evaluation Report from the NGO Conservation International indexing the more than 400 plant and animal species living along the Simandou Range.

‘’This area is our greatest concern, because it is home to species protected by international conventions,’’ Diallo added.

With an annual production of 17 million tonnes, Guinea is second only to Australia, which produces 55 million tonnes, in bauxite production.

While Guinean bauxite production experienced a relative increase since 1974, rising from 7.6 million to 17 million tonnes by 2003, it has not really seen a parallel gain in the production of alumina. Alumina production rose from 0.64 million tonnes to only 0.67 tonnes during the same period, according to the Ministry of Mines.