Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée

Stock performance

History

Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG) was founded in 1963 to mine the vast bauxite deposits around Sangarédi in the Boké region, and began exporting in the 1970s through the purpose-built port of Kamsar. For decades it was the backbone of Guinea's economy and its largest single source of export earnings and government revenue.

Business model

CBG mines bauxite, the ore used to make aluminum, from open-pit mines and transports it by rail to Kamsar for shipment to alumina refineries abroad. It is owned 51% by Halco Mining, a consortium including Alcoa and Rio Tinto, and 49% by the Guinean state.

Market position

CBG was long the dominant bauxite producer in Guinea, the country with the world's largest bauxite reserves, but it has been overtaken in volume by the Chinese-backed Société Minière de Boké as new mines have multiplied in the region.

Country impact

CBG's mining towns, railway, and port shaped the development of the Boké region, and its royalties and taxes have been a cornerstone of Guinea's public finances for half a century, making it the model, and sometimes the cautionary example, for the country's mining-dependent development.