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Bauxite: Sonamines partners with China's CREC 5 to develop the Ngaoundal and Makan deposits

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  - Friday, 18 February 2022 15:13

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(Invest in Cameroon) - The Director General of the National Mining Company (Sonamines), Serge Boyogueno, signed, on February 18, 2022, with China Railways No. 5 Engineering Group Co (CREC 5), a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the framework of the development, financing and implementation of mining projects and related industries in Cameroon. Concretely, we learn officially, this subsidiary of the China Railways Group Ltd should accompany Sonamines in the development of the bauxite deposits of Ngaoundal and Makan, located in the Adamawa region.

« Cameroon has three world-class bauxite deposits in the Adamawa region (Minim-Martap, Ngaoundal and Makan, Editor's note). The resources are estimated at one billion tons. In July 2018, Cameroon had awarded three research permits on these deposits to a mining operator (the Australian Canyon Resources, Editor's note), for a period of 3 years, non-renewable. The three permits expired on July 11, 2021 and the operator submitted an application to the Ministry of Mines for an operating permit on one of the three permits (Minim-Martap, Editor's note). Sonamines, the secular and operational arm of the State in the sector, has therefore requested since November 2021 the other two spaces to be granted two research permits, "explains Serge Hervé Boyogueno, the CEO of Sonamines.

According to Mr. Boyogueno, this signed MoU should lead to the establishment of a consortium with Chinese state-owned companies with expertise in the mining, industrial and commercial fields; the completion of research work with the production of a bankable feasibility study and an environmental impact study; bauxite mining; the construction of a refinery for the transformation of bauxite into alumina; the construction of a plant for the transformation of alumina into aluminium; and finally the construction of a plant for the transformation of aluminum into derived products (sheets, alucobonds, electrical cables, etc.).

« After this MoU, the binding agreements will follow, the last step before the actual start of work on the ground. All this is obviously conditioned by obtaining all the related titles, "says the CEO of Sonamines. On analysis, thanks to this alliance with Chinese operators, Sonamines, which was created on December 14, 2020, could very quickly become not only a mining operator in Cameroon, but also a major operator in heavy industry.