Europe is the top destination for Guinea bauxite export at present

According to a recent report from Reuters, Guinea aims to increase bauxite production to 60 million tonnes by 2020. According to the mines minister of Guinea, the country is planning to invest aggressively to meet strong demand for bauxite from China. Guinea is posing as the next big source of bauxite after ore export ban in Indonesia and bauxite mining moratorium in Malaysia.

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The West African nation has about a third of the world's bauxite reserves and one of the leading bauxite producer. Currently, Guinea produces more than 20 million tons of bauxite annually. The country has recently seen a few significant investments by overseas companies. Domestically, the Friguia alumina refinery by Rusal consumes about 1.5 million tons of bauxite produced in their mine. An analysis of the export patterns of bauxite in Guinea in last two years will give an insight about the change in the bauxite market in Guinea.

In 2015, Guinea exported 19.9 million tons of bauxite globally. The total revenue realized from aluminium export was USD 889 million. The amount dropped to 19 million tons in 2016 and bauxite export delivered USD 815 million revenue to the exporters. Based on the statistics of last two years, for the first eleven months of 2017, Guinea is estimated to export 17.2 million tons of bauxite and the revenue is forecasted to be about USD 777 million.

Currently, the top destinations for bauxite export from Guinea are Spain, Ukraine and Ireland. The three countries account for fifty per cent of the total bauxite export from Guinea. United States and Germany also import a substantial amount of bauxite from Guinea.  However, the trend is expected to change in the coming year as China is looking at importing bauxite from Guinea to feed its alumina refineries.

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Rusal, Guinea's Bauxite Company (CBG), Guinean-Chinese consortium SMB-WAP and Guinea Alumina Corporation S.A. (“GAC”) owned by Emirates Global Aluminium (“EGA”) are some of the major bauxite players in Guinea.

The GAC project in Guinea centers on a high quality, export grade bauxite deposit in excess of 1.3 billion tonnes. The project is under development and the first bauxite bulk sample shipment of 55,000 tonnes from its mine under development in the Republic of Guinea has left from the port of Kamsar in December 2016 to China.