Yael Pipano

Alcoa: Analysts Positive on Good Quarter Results

Guinea to replace Alcoa management at bauxite miner
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By: Reuters
Published on 18th July 2008

An interim management committee will take over the running of the world's top bauxite exporter, Guinea's CBG, from US aluminium company Alcoa, the West African country's government said on Friday.

The committee will run Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG) until March 2009, the government said in a statement released on Friday after a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

"Regarding the contract for management assistance, it is necessary to choose a new partner after the transitional period," it said. The management agreement with Alcoa had not met the state' expectations, it said.

An Alcoa spokesman had no immediate comment.

CBG is 49-percent owned by the Guinean state and 51-percent owned by the Halco consortium, in which Alcoa and Rio Tinto own 45 percent each and Dadco owns 10 percent.

Guinea's previous government and Halco agreed in April to review CBG's management contract as part of the country's efforts to maximise earnings from its important minerals industry, which included a review of mining contracts.

CBG said in January it expected to produce a record 13,5-million tonnes of bauxite in 2008, up from 12,5-million in 2007, when strikes and unrest hit output.