Cameroon: Australo-Chinese mess around the bauxite of Ngaoundal and Makan

23-02-2022

Africa-Press-Cameroon. Mines Minister **riel Dodo Ndoke canceled a memorandum of understanding between Sonamines and its Chinese partner Crec5 to develop the bauxite mines of Ngaoundal and Makan. Two sites also requested by the Australian Junior Canyon Resources…

**riel Dodo Ndoke insisted that his decision be read on public radio in the afternoon of February 21. A few hours earlier, the Cameroonian Minister of Mines, Industry and Technological Development (Minmidt) canceled the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed three days earlier between Serge Hervé Boyogueno, the leader of the National Mining Company (Sonamines), and Zhao Shihai, the boss of China Railway 5 Engineering Group Co (Crec5), a subsidiary of China Railway Group Ltd.

Created in December 2020 to represent the interests of the State in the mining sector, like what the National Hydrocarbons Company (SNH) does in the oil field, Sonamines nevertheless intended, with this MOU, to establish a first strategic partnership to exploit the bauxite deposits of Nagoundal and Makan, in the northern region of Adamaoua.

The agreement provided in particular for the establishment of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) or Common Debt Fund (FCC), a joint ownership financing instrument allowing the issuance of debt units that could be resolved to investors. In view, the founding of a consortium with Chinese public companies that could lead to the construction of a refinery for the processing of ore into alumina, and the construction of plants for the transformation of alumina into aluminum, then into by-products (sheets, alucobonds, electric cables).

End of inadmissibility

But the agreement did not please **riel Dodo Ndoke, with whom Serge Hervé Boyogueno submitted, four months ago, applications for research permits on these mining sites. "He wants to force the minister's hand by concluding partnerships on titles that he does not have", we complain in the ministerial entourage. Which adds that, as technical guardianship of the public company, the Ministry of Mines "monitors the legality of its actions".

And the memorandum is rightly canceled "for violation of Cameroonian mining legislation in terms of the allocation of mining titles, the conclusion and signing of contracts, pre-contracts, conventions and other agreements on the administration and management of mineral resources in the Cameroonian subsoil. , exclusive prerogatives of the State”.

Serge Hervé Boyogueno, the general manager of Sonamines, in Yaoundé on February 15, 2022. © Roger Sandjon

Daring the comparison with Adolphe Moudiki, the powerful boss of the SNH and close friend of Paul Biya, an analyst points out: “No minister would dare to inflict such a snub on him. Should we see a desire to put the boss of Sonamines under the extinguisher before he becomes omnipotent and therefore uncontrollable? »

The case becomes clearer when we know that the Australian company Canyon Resources obtained, in July 2018, three research permits on the sites of Ngaoundal, Makan and Minim Martap, whose potential is estimated at more than one billion tons of bauxite. Permits whose validity expired three years later.

On August 24, 2021, Dodo Ndoke rejected the request of Camalco, a subsidiary of Canyon, to extend the first two titles for two additional years. However, he makes an exception on Minim Martap, on the condition that the Australian junior provides proof of its technical and financial capacity to develop the project.

Cut the grass underfoot

However, the latter had just established, a week earlier, a strategic partnership with MCC-CIE, an entity of the giant China Minmetals Corp to develop the ore. Canyon Resources is therefore applying for a new exploitation permit for Minim Martap and is relaunching its applications for Ngaoundal and Makan. Because, argues a source familiar with the matter, the risk on this project is obvious if it is relieved of the two other mines.

Having entered into activity in the meantime, Sonamines – whose statutes provide that it benefits free of charge from 10% of the shares of any mining project undertaken in Cameroon, with the possibility of increasing up to 25% on the condition of releasing its share. share – rushes into the breach by also soliciting titles on the last two slots. Way to pull the rug out from under Canyon Resources?

Upstream, Crec5 had exposed its mining ambitions in Cameroon during an audience that Dodo Ndoke had granted to Zhao Shihai, in March 2021. Interview which Serge Hervé Boyogueno, then director of mines in the eponymous ministerial department, attended.

Present in Cameroon, among others, on the Tongo-Babadjou road sites in the Western region, and the Douala-Yaoundé railway sites, the Chinese company is also involved in copper mining in the DRC, through the Sicomines joint venture, and the Simandou iron mining project in Guinea.

Is Boyogueno willing to engage in a standoff with his guardianship which is currently studying his requests for mining titles? "He has in any case the ability to attack the ministerial decision before the administrative judge", evokes our analyst. The only plausible outcome is arbitration at the Etoudi Palace, where the case is being closely monitored.

https://www-africa--press-net.translate.goog/cameroun/dossiers/cameroun-cafouillage-australo-chinois-autour-de-la-bauxite-de-ngaoundal-et-de-makan?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc