Simandou on track for first ore shipment in Nov, Rio Tinto JV confirms

SimFer, the joint venture between the Government of the Republic of Guinea, Rio Tinto, and the Chalco Iron Ore Holdings - a Chinalco-led joint venture of leading Chinese SOEs including Baowu - held the mining concession for blocks 3 and 4 in the south of the Simandou project, as reported.

The JV highlighted the advancements made on the Simandou project over the third quarter of this year despite a particularly challenging rainy season, including the completion of a 72-kilometer track for the rail spur, rapid progress in civil engineering work at port, and ongoing development of infrastructure.

The first iron ore shipment from Simandou had accelerated to November this year, as Rio Tinto stated in its second quarterly report released in July, expecting 0.5-1 million tonnes of shipments from SimFer within the year.

However, a worker fatality at the SimFer mine site in August raised concerns about whether the schedule would be affected. Late last month, all activity at the SimFer mine site was suspended following the death of an employee from a contracting company, as Mysteel Global reported.

The latest update from SimFer now erases doubts about the progress of the Simandou project, and the mine is on track to ramp up to a full capacity of 60 million tonnes/year within 30 months as planned after the first shipment is made in November, the release noted.

Iron ore from the SimFer mine will initially be shipped through Winning Consortium Simandou (WCS) port while construction of the SimFer port is finalized, SimFer said. WCS owns blocks 1 and 2 in the north of the Simandou project, with a designed capacity of 60 million t/y, Mysteel Global learns. 

Written by Irene Zhuang, zhuangailing@mysteel.com

Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com