Lindian Resources to turn its 1 billion tonne Guinean bauxite assets into production

Lindian Resources Limited has in excess of one billion tonnes of bauxite resources in the Republic of Guinea, which the company is contemplating to turn into production. Guinea is the world’s second-largest bauxite producer after Australia and the leading supplier of bauxite ore into China.

In 2020,  Guinea exported 83 million tonnes of bauxite, an increase of 388 per cent from 2014.

According to Asimwe Kabunga, chairman of Lindian, the company could play a major role in the global aluminium supply chain for many years in the future.

He said, “We are really excited, we think we have a huge opportunity here. With more than one billion tonnes of bauxite, it is a very long-term proposition.”

“All three of our projects have JORC resources, there is no more drilling to be done - unless we wish to increase the resources, but we believe we have plenty at the moment - and the next step is utilising and building infrastructure to get the bauxite out of where it is.”

Lindian’s bauxite projects are all within the large northern bauxite corridor in Guinea, entitled Lelouma, Gaoual and Woula.

Lelouma has a multi-generational bauxite deposit, with 900 million tonnes at 45 per cent alumina and 2.1 per cent silica in the measured, indicated and inferred categories.

Gaoual is a very high-grade, unique conglomerate bauxite deposit, with 83.8 million tonnes of bauxite at 41.7 per cent alumina and 3.2 per cent silica.

Lindian is planning to utilise existing infrastructure to bring Woula and Gaoual into production and become cash generative. While the former is only 10 kilometres from an existing haul road connecting to the bauxite export terminal of Katougouma, the latter is 100 kilometre from the CBG railrod.

“There has been a lot of investment in Guinea in the last 10 years, and Lindian will follow in the footsteps of Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG), a partnership between Alcoa, Rio Tinto and the Guinea Government, which has been mining bauxite in Guinea for more than 50 years,” said Kabunga.

“Although Guinea has been through turmoil, it has never stopped mining bauxite for even a day, and we are very close to the original CBG deposit; we’re very unique in Guinea and indeed the world,” he added.