China is planning to break its dependency on Australia and Brazil for iron ore. Africa is the key
- China has a number of iron ore projects in the works in Africa as part of its ‘foundation plan’ to de-risk its supply of the mineral
- For now, the country relies heavily on Australia and Brazil, which supply the vast majority of the world’s iron ore
In the northern province of Sierra Leone, a 12 million tonne iron ore processing plant is being built – at a cost of US$230 million – at the Tonkolili iron ore mine by Leone Rock Metal Group, a subsidiary of Chinese mining and metals company China Kingho Energy Group. The mine has an estimated 13.7 billion tonnes of iron ore.
This is after Guinea’s parliament, the National Transitional Council, voted to approve laws that ratified the US$20 billion deal which, as well as the iron ore extraction, will see the development of a railway and port. Chinese state-owned entities, including steelmaker Baowu Group, have also agreed to invest in the massive project, which has an annual production capacity of 120 million tonnes.
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Chinese companies are also investing in the Mbalam-Nabeba project, which will develop large-scale iron ore deposits that straddle Cameroon and neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville in central-west Africa.