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5500 billion FCFA for the construction of the Kribi ore terminal and the Mbalam-Kribi railway

Published: Mar 8, 2022 Updated: Mar 8, 2022by Alain Nwaha

Two financing contracts were signed on February 25, 2022 between the Cameroonian and Congolese governments and Bestway Finance Ltd and AustSino Resources Group Limited.

The two contracts were signed in the presence of the Cameroonian Minister of Transport, Ernest Massena Ngalle Bibehe and Pierre Oba Minister of State, Minister of Mining Industries and Geology of Congo. These documents constitute the deed which marks the financing by Bestway Finance Limited and AustSino Resources Group Limited, of the two projects.

This is on the one hand the construction of the railway linking Mbalam to the port of Kribi (South). 510 km long and with 6 crossing branches, it will be a two-way railway line with a rail for unloading wagons, a supply and track maintenance yard in the terminal, a marshalling yard main with operation and maintenance facilities.

A train control and signaling system, a communication system, a rail access road, an operation and maintenance infrastructure will also be part of it. The ore terminal will be housed at the port of Kribi. Its work will extend over more than 400 hectares of land area and approximately 500 hectares in the maritime domain.

They will include, among other things, a main berth and a loading platform for berthing and loading Panamax-sized bulk carriers with an average capacity of 170,000 deadweight tons (DWT) ore terminal at Capesize, an average capacity of 1,000,000 tonnes DWT, a dredged channel and maneuvering basin large enough to allow the berthing and loading of a Capesize vessel suitable for a discharge channel dredging depth of up to 30 metres. The two projects are valued at 10 billion dollars, nearly 5500 billion FCFA.

" The involvement of the two States (Congo and Cameroon) in the construction of the Mbalam/Kribi railway and the multimodal ore terminal at the port of Kribi is proof that Bestway Finance Limited and its partner AustSino Resources Group Limited are not passing through ; much more, they contribute to developing exemplary South-South cooperation ,” says Alexandre Mbiam, Managing Director of Bestway Finance Limited.

Bestway Finance Limited and AustSino Resources Group Limited have put in place the conditions required for the development of modern rail, road and port infrastructure, in order to allow the development of the mining deposits of which the Kasai Craton in Congo is located and of which the Nkout and Mbalam deposits in Cameroon, as well as the Avima, Badondo and Nabeba deposits in the Republic of Congo.

By presidential decrees of November 30, 2020, the company Bestway Finance Limited through its subsidiary Sangha Mining Development (SASU) was granted, in the Republic of Congo, the said deposits, through the allocation of Exploitation Permits, for a period of 25 years, called "Avima", "Badondo" and "Nabeba".

The joint processing capacity is more than 100 million tons of iron per year in the Republic of Cameroon. Bestway Finance Limited and its partner AustSino Resources Group Limited aim to enter production by 2025, with an effective start of work planned for 2023.

Translated source:
https://actucameroun-com.translate.goog/2022/03/08/5500-milliards-de-fcfa-pour-la-construction-du-terminal-mineralier-de-kribi-et-du-chemin-de-fer-mbalam-kribi/?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc