The first shipment of iron ore from Guinea’s US$20 billion Simandou mine will be flagged off with the project’s inauguration on Tuesday, a development that is set to reshape global supply and pricing once commercial exports reach full capacity.
Most of the steelmaking resource extracted from Simandou – the world’s largest known undeveloped reserve of high-grade iron ore – is expected to go to China, given the heavy investments by Chinese firms in the project.
However, as railway and port infrastructure nears completion and with full operational ramp-up expected in the coming months, the massive multinational project has been overshadowed by geopolitical tensions.
The Simandou mine’s estimated 3.3 billion tonnes of “green ore” have the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in global steelmaking. Photo: Reuters
Guinean authorities are understood to have turned away a shipment of 18 Chinese-built locomotives in September, destined for the Winning Consortium Simandou (WCS), at the port of Conakry.
A government source said the shipment violated the co-development agreement – a pact signed by Guinea and the project’s international consortiums – that stipulated locomotives must come from the US.
“The locomotives were subsequently shipped back to China,” according to the source, who declined to be named because of the matter’s sensitivity. WCS has not yet responded to a request for comment.
The consortium – which is developing blocks 1 and 2 as well as the double-track railway from the mining areas to Morebaya port – placed an order in January with Wabtec Corporation in the US for locomotives that were scheduled to arrive from October 2025.
The measure was not about targeting Chinese locomotives. “If they had brought in a locomotive made by any other country, we would have made the same decision to cancel the contract,” the source said.
