Emirates Global Aluminium announces progress on $1.4bn bauxite mine project in the Republic of Guinea
Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the UAE outside oil and gas, has announced that first exports from its bauxite mine in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa, are expected during the second half of 2019.
The announcement comes as the biggest single piece of equipment for the project arrived in the country.
EGA’s subsidiary Guinea Alumina Corporation is developing a bauxite mine and associated export facilities in Boké province in the largest greenfield investment in Guinea in the last four decades. Bauxite is the ore from which aluminium is derived.
GAC’s stacker reclaimer weighs 1,300 tonnes and will now be installed at the company’s site in Kamsar.
When GAC’s mine is operational, the stacker reclaimer will be used to stack bauxite ore arriving at Kamsar by rail. It will also reclaim and place ore on a conveyor system for transport along GAC’s pier to waiting barges.
More than 3,000 people, over 80 percent Guineans, are currently building the $1.4 billion project which is expected to produce 12 million tonnes of bauxite per year.
EGA said it is expanding upstream and internationally to secure the natural resources the UAE’s aluminium industry needs, and to create new revenue streams for the company.
In addition to the GAC project, EGA is building the UAE’s first alumina refinery in Abu Dhabi which will process bauxite into alumina, the feedstock for aluminium smelters.
Abdulla Kalban, EGA’s managing director and CEO, said: “The arrival of this huge piece of equipment in Guinea is another big step forward in the GAC project, bringing us ever closer to producing and exporting our first bauxite ore.”
The stacker reclaimer was delivered to Kamsar port from China in 12 separate modules. Each part will now be carefully moved to GAC’s site by rail, in a process that is expected to take several days.
Once assembled the stacker reclaimer, which resembles a large crane, will be some 125 long and 25 meters high.
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