Guinea to increase country's energy production to facilitate bauxite refining in the country

Guinea government is focusing on increasing its energy production capacity by about four fold over next six years in order to help bauxite mining companies refine their bauxite locally, an announcement from the energy minister recently stated.

Guinea is Africa’s biggest producer of bauxite and the growing bauxite demand from China has caused a boom in the country’s bauxite industry. The country now accounts for more than half of China’s bauxite imports. Now, in order to leverage on its mining resources for economic development, the government is encouraging mining companies to build refineries in order to refine them into alumina, the key raw material for aluminium.

“Mines are, quite simply, development. And the mines can’t develop without energy,” Cheick Taliby Sylla said on the sidelines of a mining conference in Guinea’s capital, Conakry.

Guinea currently produces just 658 megawatts of power with the major part of the country with no access to electricity. So, this questions the feasibility of establishing a power-intensive refining industry in Guinea. But Sylla expects the power output to grow significantly in near future driven by several projects in the pipeline.

“By 2025, we will have around 2,600 megawatts in terms of total production,” he said. “We can dedicate a quantity to (the mining companies) ... We will guarantee that supply of energy.”

Souapiti hydro-electric dam, a 450-megawatt dam, being built by China Water Electric is the first large-scale power project expected to enter production. The dam being built with US$1.3 billion in financing from China Exim Bank is expected to start production next year.

“There are contractual obligations that were entered into freely by mining companies,” Guinean Mines Minister Abdoulaye Magassouba said. “We plan to respect to our commitments. And we expect our partners to respect their commitments.”

SMB - a consortium of three groups from Singapore, China and Guinea will begin construction of a refinery later this year with a production capacity of 1 million tonnes of alumina annually.