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DAM-L IFC-backed aluminum/dam project in Guinea/LS (fwd)
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Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 09:42:39 -0700
To: irn-safrica@netvista.net
From: Lori Pottinger <lori@irn.org>
Subject: IFC-backed aluminum/dam project in Guinea/LS
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15/05/01 GUINEA
Guinea says aluminium project 'taking shape'
The government of Guinea is to associate itself with
an international consortium that includes Enron Corp
of the United States in a US$2.5 billion project to
develop an aluminium project. Other members of the
consortium, which has been dubbed the Guinea Aluminium
Products Company or GAPCO, are the Marubeni
Corporation of Japan, the International Finance
Corporation and other, unspecified Japanese operators
in Guinea. The news was announced by Morcire Sylla,
head of the Centre for Mining Promotion and
Development, who also specified that the project,
based at Sangaredi, will include a dam, a 750 megawatt
hydroelectric power station, the extension of an
existing alumina plant at Fria and the construction of
a new smelter with a capacity of 240,000 tonnes per
year. The project is expected to become operational in
four to five years. Secondary projects to run
concurrently with the aluminium project are the
building of about 300 kms of roads and a major bridge
between the towns of Badi and Tondon. GAPCO is said to
have already carried out feasibility studies for the
project.
Guinea has 30% of the world?s known reserves of
bauxite and is behind only Australia in production of
the ore, from which alumina and, eventually, aluminium
are produced. The country?s Chamber of Mines estimates
bauxite production for 2001 will be at 18.6 million
tonnes. Most of Guinea?s bauxite is currently exported
without being processed, as the country has no smelter
facilities.
The downside of the project is that it would involve
the displacement and rehousing of 40,000 people. And
no mention has yet been made of where the $2.5 billion
is to come from. Similar aluminium projects have been
put forward by successive Guinean governments since
the French left the country in 1958, but none have
come to fruition, largely because of the political
situation in the country. The handful of companies
that control the world?s aluminium industry ?
including Russian Aluminium, Reynolds and Alcan of the
United States ? have been loathe up until recently
(AMI 17/04/01) to get involved financially in Guinea.
The press in Guinea has said that, despite the good
global outlook for aluminium, poor management and a
?political-administrative climate that is hostile to
private enterprise in Guinea? will make it difficult
to procure the level of investment needed for the
GAPCO project during the tenure of president Cont?,
whose mandate is due to end in 2003.
AFRICA MINING INTELLIGENCE N? 13
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network <'})))>><
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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