Guinea Govt. delivers “Green Signal” to Lindian Resources for the acquisition of Lelouma Bauxite project

Lindian Resources, the Australian Securities Exchange-listed West African Bauxite mining company has received “green signal” from the Ministry of Mines, Govt. of Guinea towards the conclusion of the acquisition of the massive, undeveloped Lelouma bauxite project in Guinea.

The Perth-based mining firm is set to assume the 75% stake in Lelouma’s underlying ownership in Sarmin Bauxite, and take over operational control of the project, pending one final condition.

Lindian now seeks the approval from its shareholder, which is expected to be done in its annual general meeting this month and this is considered as the final hurdle that needs to be cleared before the mining firm secures the asset.

In October’20, it reported significant development in the mineral resource estimate for Lelouma to an imposing 900 million tonnes grading 45% aluminium oxide.

According to Lindian, more than US$10 million of previous exploration expenditure has been sunk into Lelouma by previous owner Mitsubishi Corporation as well as Sarmin.

Asimwe Kabunga, Chairman, Lindian Resources, said: “Lelouma is a Tier 1 bauxite asset and it complements our Woula and Gaoual projects and also our strategy to identify low CAPEX solutions to commence DSO (direct shipping ore) bauxite production.”

Lelouma sits just 40km from Lindian’s high-grade Gaoual conglomerate bauxite project, with both projects located within trucking distance of established haul road and rail infrastructure and related bulk shipping ports.

The smaller, 19-million-tonne Woula bauxite project near the coast may open the door to a doable economic development in the near term.

According to the US Geological Society, Guinea hosts the largest bauxite reserves in the world and accounts for approximately 95% of bauxite exports out of Africa.