Deep in the south of Guinea lies Simandou, an impressive mountain range with a lucrative underbelly: the world’s largest untapped iron ore deposits, amounting to an estimated 2.8bn tonnes.
In 2013, it was at the centre of one of the biggest mining financial scandals in history, stemming from an ownership tussle over development licenses awarded in the 1990s during the regime of the west African country’s former authoritarian president Lansana Conté .
For years, various start dates have been touted for production, but a series of political upheavals and the reassigning of licences have stymied progress.
According to Guinea’s ruling junta and the site’s new owners, all that will change later this year with the planned opening of a vast new complex that has been touted by its supporters as a gamechanger for the country, where mining already accounts for 90% of exports.
“This mining project must be for Guinea what oil was for the Gulf,” Ismaël Nabé, the minister for planning, said in an interview in November.
The ambitious plan for the site includes a 650km (400 mile) railway from the mine to three deep seaports under construction, a metallurgical plant and 10,000km of asphalt by 2040. Authorities say the $20bn (£15.4bn) investment will yield an estimated 60,000 jobs and help finance education for millions of children in a country where two-thirds of the population live on less than £2 a day.
On the Guinean presidency’s YouTube account, several high-budget videos proclaim Simandou 2040 – as the megaproject has been christened – a “bridge to prosperity”. Given its superior ore grade and production capacity, industry observers have even called it “Pilbara killer” on the grounds that it will eventually displace Australia’s Pilbara region as the world’s largest iron producer.
In January, American rail technology providers Wabtec signed a $248m deal to bring in locomotives for the dual-track railway to connect the proposed mine to the Atlantic.
But while reports in Guinea suggest that the first beam has been laid, key sections of the railway are not ready and other supporting infrastructure projects are far from completion, casting doubt on October’s proposed start date for production.
Other concerns common to mining projects – around financing, safety and the environment – are also at play.
After Guinea’s September 2021 coup, the ownership structure for the megaproject became more complex. Two of the site’s four mining blocks are owned by a consortium consisting of the Anglo-Australian mining organisation Rio Tinto, a Chinese holding company and the Guinean state. The other two are being developed by a Singapore-based consortium.
Many in civil society and the opposition allege that details of the financing for the deal have been shrouded in secrecy. “There is no transparency in the Simandou project,” said Mamoudou Diallo, an activist and journalist who claims only a few members of the ruling junta are aware of key project details.
In 2007, Guinea joined the Extractive Industries Transparency International (EITI) as part of a commitment to improve good governance in the sector. But while the country has made substantial progress in publishing data on revenues received and paid, recent contracts relating to the Simandou mining concession have not yet been made public, said Joanne Jones, the communications and strategy director at EITI. “We strongly urge publication of contracts associated with the project,” she added.
Last July, two people died as the army quelled a protest by local people in Beyla, a district at the heart of the project, who claimed subcontractors weren’t recruiting fairly. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that six local workers were killed between June 2023 and November 2024 in accidents on the project. In all, the report said, there had been more than 40 undisclosed accidents since construction on the megaproject began. The government told the news agency it was investigating the deaths.
Authorities have spoken about how there will be lower carbon emissions in steelmaking owing to higher quality of the iron ore. But in villages like Diala and Diarakendou, local people say solid waste from the construction is polluting the area and claim the companies are not acknowledging their complaints.
“There are many villages that I travelled through where the impacts are visible,” said Diallo, who has done investigative work in some of these communities. “Citizens are even complaining that evacuation canals have been drained towards fields, in particular rice fields and water sources.”
The Guinean ministry of environment and sustainable development was approached for comment.
Bright Simons, the vice-president of research at the Imani Centre for Policy and Education in the Ghanian capital, Accra, said the involvement of two consortiums had complicated the timeframe for opening the site.
“Production this year is out of the question,” he said, owing to the need for each consortium to coordinate on infrastructure development. Simons added that in particular he was yet to see a full commitment to accelerating funding for the rail element of the project.
On social media, some Guineans joke about the launch date and recruitment of influencers to endorse the project. And among the Guinean opposition, fanfare around Simandou 2040 is seen as an attempt to generate campaign footage in the run-up to as yet unannounced elections that the junta leader, Mamady Doumbouya, is expected to contest.
“Apparently the 2025 timeline for Simandou production is a political timeline,” Simons said. “The companies were told by Doumbouya to start this year or face consequences. The plan is thus to play along with the messaging and do some show activities from mid-year. But serious analysts don’t expect credible production to begin before 2028.”
