Guinea's alumina refinery dream can come true with international cooperation

Investigations led by foreign media concluded, Guinea’s interim government is eager to know about the work plan and duration of each project carried out on their ground to extract alumina from bauxite. The government is reportedly asking international mining companies to submit production plans for refining bauxite into alumina along with an explanation pertaining to the construction timeline for alumina refineries. The documents must be submitted before the end of May this year which might accelerate the construction of alumina projects under the Chinese enterprises operating in Guinea.

Guinea stands out to be a country with the biggest amount of bauxite reserves in the world with high content of alumina in each produce. The reserves yield 40 billion tonnes of bauxite which accounts one-third of the total stockpile on planet Earth. Yet among them the full-proof producers of bauxite yield almost 29 billion tonnes, ranking the first in the world.

For an unsurmountable amount of time, Guinea’s natural resources served as the economic stronghold for people in the area but exporting bauxite to other countries or their bauxite being used by other enterprises to acquire alumina, a much costlier product, is urging them to think in a different direction. Authorities are now exploring options around this area where introducing local production facilities might bring them more money since alumina is far more costly than bauxite and its export might double the income.

To decrease the export of bauxite from Guinea, the government is now seeking the help of international mining companies to construct alumina refineries in the native land of West Africa. These decisions by the interim government are no different to the bans imposed by Indonesia the year before. Guinea now aims at reducing the bauxite exports by expanding the aluminium industry chain in turn stabilizing the value of aluminium products in the country. Most of the Chinese aluminium enterprises are not taken aback by Guinea’s cry for survival; it is as if they were anticipating this change in attitude for a long time.

With the abundance of technical knowledge available at fingertips, the entire world wants to be self-reliant and for that each country needs to think first for itself.

Indonesia’s announcement of Bauxite export ban has pushed Chinese enterprises into action as they are continuously brooding on the expansion of alumina refineries in the country. As estimated, nearing 2021’s end, Chinese enterprises had already commissioned the building of nearly 6 million tonnes capacity alumina refineries in Indonesia and Jamaica.