First Bauxite Corporation and the Guyana government on November 22 signed a mineral agreement to open a bauxite mine at Bonasika, along the Essequibo River.
First Bauxite Corporation CEO Hilbert Shields and Prime Minister Samuel Hinds exchange notes after signing the Bonasika Mineral Agreement
The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Hilbert Shields; Prime Minister Samuel Hinds; and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) Chairman, Major General (retired) Joe Singh were signatories to a mineral agreement with the Canadian company. President Bharrat Jagdeo, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh and GGMC Commissioner (acting) Karen Livan were among those who witnessed the signing.
The mine, located close to Timehri, has a life span of 44 years and can yield bauxite production of 100,000 tonnes on an annual basis. First Bauxite Corporation has completed a feasibility study and intends to build a mine in 18 months.
According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) release, Prime Minister Hinds, the minister responsible for mining, said the bauxite belt stretches from the Pomeroon area to Bartica, Linden, Kwakwani, Ituni and Orealla.
Shields disclosed that the company plans to construct a plant designed to promote environmental sustainability, with the use of vertical shafts that have zero emissions thereby averting dust and other pollution.
The energy cost that will be incurred for producing refractory grade bauxite has also been taken into consideration and according to Shields, the company will be looking towards kilns and other sources that are more efficient. The CEO presented a draft copy of the feasibility study to Hinds and said that the company is cognisant that mining practices in today’s world must be done with the environment at heart.
Although the company is Canadian based and the capital will come from Canadian markets, Shields said the expertise and product base will be local.
The agreement follows the historic Aurora Mineral agreement with Guyana Goldfields, and another with Sandspring Resources Inc and its affiliate ETK Inc for the development of the Toroparu mines.
Manganese mining in the North West District, Region One, has been reinvigorated after agreements were sealed in March this year with Reunion Manganese Incorporated.
President Jagdeo said the aforementioned agreements amount to Gy$2 billion in cumulative investments, and spoke of plans by the Russian aluminium company RUSAL in the Berbice River to expand production to five million tonnes by 2015 and 10 million tonnes by 2018.
“That will bring a world of jobs in the Berbice River and will also have a huge impact in New Amsterdam because of the logistic for shipping 10 million tonnes of bauxite versus 1.2 million tonnes,” President Jagdeo said.
Bosai, which will be expanding production under another agreement with the government, will lead to massive job creation in the Linden area, confirming that Ramotar’s promise of at least 1000 jobs in the community is not a “pipedream” as one newspaper article had stated.
Guyana was the prime location in the world for bauxite in the 1920s and according to Hinds, local bauxite was 38 percent of the world market in World War II, but with new deposits discovered in countries like Guinea, Jamaica and Australia and bauxite in Guyana reaching the point of exhaustion, Guyana began facing difficulties.
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