Print

Mail

wiki links

Timetable set for Chinese iron ore project in Gabon

A gigantic project to tap huge iron ore reserves in Gabon is at last set to get off the ground after months of intensive negotiations between the west African state and China.

Following a visit by three top Gabonese officials to Beijing, the Libreville government last week unveiled a long-awaited timetable for essential infrastructure work as well as a list of Chinese companies that will do the job.

Production at the facility, located in Belinga, northeastern Gabon, is expected to start in 2011.

"We have agreed on the legal framework for the operation, the Chinese have designated the constituent companies and its financial organization," Gabonese Minister for Fines Richard Auguste Onouviet said.

"Contrary to what one has heard up to now the project is on the rails. It was difficult to get going but the teething problems common to an operation of such a size are now behind us," he said.

UNTAPPED RESERVES

Last year Gabon gave China sole rights to exploit untapped iron ore reserves, saying the project would create "thousands of jobs" for the Gabonese.

Iron ore was discovered in 1955 at Belinga, which lies in remote forest hills 500km east of Libreville, the capital and port on Gabon's Atlantic coast.

Believed to be one of the last major untapped iron ore reserves on the planet, the Belinga site has never been developed because of the prohibitive cost of the necessary infrastructure.

Costly rail links are needed to reach the reserves in the tropical forest, along with a deepwater port and a hydroelectric dam.

Chinese interests will control 85 percent of Comibel, the firm named to oversee the project, and Gabon 15 percent, Onouviet said.

The Chinese import-export bank Eximbank has agreed to lend the Chinese companies the US$3 billion necessary to carry out the infrastructure work, with the loan reimbursed through sales of the iron mineral.

DELAYS

Infrastructure work had been expected to get underway last year but had been put off several times, raising doubts over whether the project would ever get off the ground.

The delays have caused impatience in Gabon, where the government sees the project creating 20,000 jobs in an economy plagued by high unemployment.

While Gabonese authorities want the mine to be up and running in three years, the Chinese companies are counting on four or five.

"The Gabonese government attaches great importance to this dossier, which should play a big role in the development of the country," Chinese Ambassador to Libreville Xue Jinwei (薛金維) said.

"But it is an enormous project that poses multiple technical difficulties," he said. "We therefore need a bit of time and a lot of studies before getting going."

The project has drawn criticism from opposition figure Zacharie Myboto.

"This timetable is incoherent and only reflects electoral concerns. It raises a lot of questions, notably on the financing of the operation, but the government has not made public the convention signed with the Chinese," he said. "We are very dubious."

Onouviet insisted there was "nothing hidden in this project."

"Gabonese interests will not be sold out. I can guarantee that this project will succeed. We are determined," he said.
This story has been viewed 1196 times.