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Sources say that Guinea has cancelled EGA's mining license

Two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday that Guinea had begun a process of withdrawing Emirates Global Aluminium’s mining license in the West African country.

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), which is owned equally by Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala, and Dubai sovereign fund Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), operates one of Guinea's largest bauxite mining operations through its Guinea Alumina Corporation subsidiary.

The company is in a dispute over the customs duty with the Guinean government since October of last year, when the authorities suspended its bauxite mining and export operations.

We have withdrawn the mining license of GAC. "A notification has been sent in this regard," said one source, a senior official of the government who asked to remain anonymous because they weren't authorised to talk.

The company didn't immediately respond to our request for a comment.

Guinea's decision to cancel EGA’s licence reflects a trend in which resource-rich nations are seeking greater control over the wealth of their minerals, and this could have a profound impact on the global mining industry.

In particular, the military-led governments of Guinea, Mali and Niger, as well as Burkina Faso, have been pushing to rewrite laws and contracts governing mining, detain executives in mining, suspend operations and seize product in order to gain more control and revenue.

The Emirati Company began operations in Guinea in 2019. It will export around 14 million tons of bauxite by 2022.

In March, it said that the suspension of activities in Guinea led to a decrease in exports of bauxite from 14,1 million metric tons of wet bauxite by 2023 down to 10,8 million metric tons in 2024.

Guinea is the second largest producer of bauxite in the world after Australia.

EGA's operations in Guinea include a 690 square kilometre mining concession that contains approximately 400 million tonnes bauxite minerals resources. (Reporting and editing by Tomasz and Elaine Hardcastle. Additional reporting by Maxwell Akalaare Adombila, Hadeel al Sayegh and Maxwell Akalaare Adombila)

(source: Reuters)