Mbalam-Nabeba: A Major Challenge

FYI....

Published yesterday.

Video transcript translated to English.

The mega-cross-border Malam Nabemba mining project, led by Heads of State Denis Assungeso of Congo and Paul Byya of Cameroon, reached its technical launch in May 2024 with the start of construction of the Nabemba mine in the Soé sub-division of the Songa department on the Congolese side.

This project, developed by Sangamining with financing from Best Way Finance, concerns the Nabeba iron ore deposits, whose reserves are estimated at 1.5 billion tons (AR), Avima, 1.4 billion tons (AR), and Badundu, 679 million tons.

A few months before its entry into production, announced for December 2025, executives from the Congolese mining administration, partners Songa Ming and Best Way Finance met in Brazaville for a progress update under the coordination of the Minister of State, Minister of Mining Industries and Geology, Pierre Aba.

Since we have been working together, I believe this is the very first time that we have brought together here in Brazaville around the same table our Chinese and Cameroonian partners, with whom we have been tasked by our heads of state to carry out this project.

I therefore wish you a warm welcome and a pleasant working stay in Congo.We hope that this first meeting, which is historic and very important for us, will lead to a cannibalistic workload and what we can call a roadmap, a work schedule, for the entire project, on both the Cameroonian and Congolese sides, so that there is harmony and the success of our mega-project is ensured.

This meeting was preceded the day before by the technicians' meeting.During this meeting, the partners made a number of commitments, the most salient of which were brought to the attention of Minister of State Pierre Aba by his advisor for the control and monitoring of mining companies.

Our partners wanted to inform us that they are doing everything possible to ensure that mining work should begin at the Nabimbat site as early as December 2025.

This work will therefore mainly concern the DSO, the rich mineral, and this mineral exported to the port of Trib.The company is committed to improving this communication with the mining administration.

Another important element that was also discussed beforehand was the regularization of surface mining payments, which is not a tax but a royalty that all companies, whether operating or not, must honor.

The company was also reminded of its quarterly reports, which are also a commitment that all companies must honor.This was the perfect opportunity for the CEO of Best Way Finance to highlight the various stages of the project, which will ultimately create nearly 20,000 jobs between Congo and Cameroon.It should be noted that our ambition within the next two years is to begin construction of the connection, which will be located in the Republic of Congo, the one for which you entrusted us with a project.

It's a 149-km connection that will itself generate multiple jobs throughout its construction.In total, we have more than 500 jobs that will be generated by this infrastructure project before we begin work on the development of the 1,300-km section connecting the Sanga River in 2027. The project's progress is satisfactory.

This is a clear demonstration that things are progressing exactly as we had planned.

Indeed, in May 2024, when we launched work at Swanké in Nabeba, we announced the effective start of production in 2025.

So I am happy to confirm that everything is progressing very well on the mega-project, and we have indeed started production.

Construction of the railway will indeed begin this year, in parallel with the actual start of production.
As they say, mining projects do not always follow a linear development pattern, the project has a very pleasant overall appearance.

The next meeting of this type, which will be extended to other ministries such as finance, the environment, and transport, is scheduled for the end of July, also in Brazzaville.