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Guinea: SMB-Winning announces a US $ 3 Billion Investment

December 04, 2017

In 2018, the SMB-Winning consortium will launch feasibility studies for the construction of an alumina refinery and a railway line to be built by 2022
CONAKRY, Guinea, December 4, 2017/ -- The SMB-Winning consortium (http://SMB-Guinee.com), a major player in the bauxite sector, presented to His Excellency Alpha Condé, President of the Republic of Guinea, a project to build an alumina refinery in Guinea as well as a railway to open up the Boffa corridor and to carry bauxite to the refinery and the Dapilon river port. The total investment planned for the whole project is estimated at US $ 3 billion. The feasibility and social and environmental impact studies will be carried out as soon as early 2018 for a start of works planned in 2019. The construction phase will create 10,000 jobs and mobilize local companies, among which experts in civil engineering, extraction, construction and services. The refinery will be located in Dapilon, in the Boké Special Economic Zone. “This investment illustrates our ambitions for the Boké region and our contribution to Guinea’s economic and social development. The mining sector, together with agriculture, is the lung of the country’s development and, in our approach as a mining operator, must also focus on facilitating a local redistribution of the benefits, especially in favor of the communities, education, jobs, and priority sectors such as the agro-industry”, comments Frédéric Bouzigues, Managing Director of Société Minière de Boké (SMB). “The local processing of raw materials is one of the biggest challenges for a more inclusive growth in Africa because it creates more value locally while leading to economic diversification. This commitment to Guinea also demonstrates our confidence in the continued improvement of both its business environment and macroeconomic stability. This project also demonstrates the technical and financial complementarity of our Franco-Sino-Singaporean consortium to carry out this type of ambitious projects”, said Fadi Wazni, Chairman of SMB. Founded in 2014, the SMB-Winning consortium brings together three partners in the fields of bauxite mining, production and transportation: Singaporean shipping company Winning Shipping Ltd, UMS, a French owned transport and logistics company that has been present in Guinea for over 20 years, and Shandong Weiqiao, a leading Chinese company in aluminum production. The consortium has planned to export 30 million tons of bauxite in 2017, making Guinea the world’s largest exporter of bauxite and the consortium one of the major contributors to the country’s gross domestic product. Founded in 2014, the SMB-Winning consortium (http://SMB-Guinee.com) brings together three global partners in the fields of bauxite mining, production and transportation: Singapore’s Winning Shipping Ltd, a leading Asian shipping company; UMS, a transport and logistics company present in Guinea for more than 20 years; Shandong Weiqiao, a leading Chinese aluminum company with 160,000 employees and annual sales of US $ 45 billion. The State of Guinea is a partner and a member of the consortium. Since its inception, SME-Gaining a review over US $ 1 billion in its extractive activities in the region of Boké. The consortium, which works directly and 5,500 people also built and manages two river ports.

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