(Ecofin Agency) - The Guinean ministry of mines on Thursday announced that the Koumbia bauxite project which is managed by the Australian Alliance Mining Commodities will come online in 2019. This should help allow the country its goal to triple its bauxite output to 60 million tons, in 2020.

Saadou Nimaga, secretary general of mines, told Reuters that the Australian firm would invest $670 million in the first five years of activity of the project. The latter should deliver annually 5 million tons of bauxite, which can be further increased to 10 million tons.

“The project which includes production, exportation, and commercialization of bauxite, covers a total area of 729 km2 and holds 300 million tons of estimated reserves, with an extractible alumina grading of 48%. It also includes the construction of multipurpose railway of 126km and a River port at Boké,” the minister of mines, Abdoulaye Magassouba, said at the ministers’ council on Thursday.  

According to him, the project should help develop Guinea’s economy, as it should generate in its first two phases of operation, $2.2 billion of direct revenues for the State, and $250 million in indirect taxes over 20 years.

Guinea which holds a third of the world’s bauxite reserves, is currently the fourth largest producer worldwide and the uncontested number one in Africa. 

Louis-Nino Kansoun