A Booming Bauxite Mining Industry of Guinea and Future Prospects

Guinea with bauxite potential of about 40 billion tonnes is the largest aluminium ore exporter in the world today. During 2019, the country exported about 70 million tonnes of bauxite, which is likely to exceed 110 million tonnes by 2021. This may substantially change the present bauxite market and significantly affect other bauxite producing countries of the world. Guinea exports one of the best and low-cost metallurgical grade bauxite in the world today. The ore is natural low silica (2.5%), medium alumina (44-46%) gibbsite bauxite, where reactive silica is only 1.2 to 1.5%, which makes this one of the best aluminium ore in the world. The present paper describes bauxite geology, basic characteristics, current and future bauxite mining, infrastructure developments and export from Guinea with details of various mining companies active in this country.

About 8 bauxite mining companies have put forward their plans to set up Greenfield alumina refineries in Guinea and some of them are in the feasibility stage. In the past also, several attempts were made for value addition within the country, however, none of them materialized. Now, this is an appropriate time for the Government of Guinea to push mining companies to set up new alumina plants in the country. In order to have sustainable bauxite mining development and prepare local technical manpower for alumina refinery, Guinea must set up Bauxite-Alumina Institute and prepare/train locals to effectively run this vital industry.