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Major equipment for Guinea bauxite project delivered

19th October 2018

By: Rebecca Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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United Arab Emirates (UAE) group Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) has announced that the single biggest piece of equipment for its Boké bauxite project has arrived in the Republic of Guinea, in West Africa. Boké is being developed by EGA subsidiary Guinea Alumina Corporation (GAC). The $1.4-billion project is one of the largest – perhaps the largest – greenfield investment in Guinea in 40 years.

The equipment is a stacker reclaimer unit that, once fully assembled, will weigh 1 300 t, with a length of 125 m and a height of 25 m. It was delivered to the Port of Kamsar from China in 12 modules and is now being moved to, and assembled on, its operating site. This involves carefully moving each module from the port, by rail, to the GAC terminal site, at another location in Kamsar. The foundational infrastructure upon which the stacker reclaimer will be mounted has already been built – this comprises a concrete structure with special rails, on which the stacker reclaimer will move as it stacks and reclaims the bauxite ore.

“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,” affirmed EGA MD and CEO Abdulla Kalban. The stacker reclaimer will become a landmark in Kamsar, as it works over the decades ahead as part of our production system transforming bauxite into value for Guinea and for EGA.”

GAC’s mining activities will take place in the area of Tanènè, which also lies in the Boké prefecture. Mining will be openpit, using traditional drill-and-blast methods. The bauxite will then be transported to the miner’s terminal at Kamsar. The arriving ore will be stacked by the stacker reclaimer, which will also subsequently gather up (‘reclaim’) the stacked ore and load it onto on a conveyor system that will then take it along GAC’s own pier to be loaded into barges.

(The bauxite will be carried from Tanènè to Kamsar by rail, and will be unloaded using another major piece of equipment, a car dumper, which was delivered to Guinea during June. The railway line is operated by mining company Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée –CBG – but is available for use by other bauxite miners in the area. GAC is building a branch line to connect its mine to the CBG main line.)

Once the project has been commissioned and production fully ramped up, the project’s annual bauxite production is expected to be about 12-million tons. The first export of bauxite from the project is forecast for the second half of next year.

The Boké project is part of EGA’s strategy to expand upstream, and internationally, to ensure it secures feedstocks for its aluminium smelters, as well as create new sources of revenue for the group. Another part of this strategy is the construction of an alumina refinery at Al Taweelah, in Abu Dhabi. This will be the first alumina refinery in the UAE. Thus, EGA will have its own bauxite, which it will process into alumina in its own refinery, which will then supply its aluminium smelters at Al Taweelah and Jebel Ali (in Dubai), in the UAE.

EGA is a 50:50 joint venture between the Investment Corporation of Dubai and the Mubadala Investment Company. It is the biggest industrial company in the UAE outside the oil and gas sector. Last year, the group produced 2.6-million tons of cast aluminium, making the UAE the number five aluminium-producing country in the world. EGA is the country’s only aluminium producer.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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