GAC’s parent company EGA signs agreement to supply bauxite from Guinea to Xinfa for five years

Kamsar, 25th November 2019 — Guinea Alumina Corporation S.A. (GAC) today announced that its parent company Emirates Global Aluminium has signed an agreement with Xinfa to supply bauxite from GAC’s bauxite mine to the Chinese company for the next five years.

Under the agreement, EGA will supply Xinfa with millions of tonnes of bauxite each year from 2020, with the first vessel scheduled to load in January.  Xinfa is one of the largest aluminium producers in China.

Last July, EGA signed a long-term agreement with Vedanta for bauxite supplies from GAC.

GAC began bauxite exports in August. EGA invested some $1.4 billion to develop the GAC project, one of the largest greenfield investments in Guinea in the past 40 years.
Zhang Gang, Chairman of Xinfa Group, said: “As a major imported bauxite consumer in China, Xinfa’s agreement with EGA will enhance our stable long-term bauxite supply. We are looking forward to achieving strategic win-win success through both Xinfa and EGA’s commitment.”

Abdulla Kalban, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of EGA and Chairman of GAC, said: “GAC is a new global source of high quality bauxite, responsibly produced and with cost-effective shipping using the world’s largest bulk cargo vessels. The strategy we are successfully implementing is to have a diversified customer base for GAC bauxite in major markets including China and India. We are pleased to now have Xinfa as bauxite customer.”
Bauxite is the ore from which aluminium is derived and is refined into alumina, the feedstock for aluminium smelters. EGA provided bulk samples of GAC bauxite to potential customers during 2017.
EGA has developed a transshipment facility offshore Kamsar to enable bauxite to be shipped using giant Capesize vessels, lowering shipment costs per tonne.

GAC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Emirates Global Aluminium, the world’s largest ‘premium aluminium’ producer. GAC produces and exports metallurgical-grade bauxite, the ore from which aluminium is derived. The company operates a 690 square kilometre mining concession, located in the northwest of the Republic of Guinea, in West Africa. Its mining concession is almost seven times the size of Paris, and the area to be developed before 2040 contains almost 400 million tonnes of bauxite mineral resources. Once mined, bauxite ore is sent by rail to GAC’s port facilities in Kamsar, on Guinea’s Atlantic coast. It is then shipped by sea to customers around the world.

GAC began bauxite exports in August 2019, and once full ramp-up is achieved, the company is expected to produce some 12 million tonnes of bauxite a year. At full production, it will contribute an estimated US$ 700 million each year to Guinea’s economy, a 5.5 per cent contribution to the country’s GDP. Some 1,000 people work in GAC’s operations.