CBG edges toward a fourth Guinean alumina refinery after Paris talks

Guinea's state, CBG and shareholder Halco agreed an action plan to advance a refinery that would join three already under construction

RMRoy Mulenga

31 August 20262 min read

CBG edges toward a fourth Guinean alumina refinery after Paris talks

The Guinean state, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée and its shareholder Halco Mining held two days of working sessions in Paris on 20 and 21 August 2026 dedicated to advancing CBG's long-discussed alumina refinery project, agreeing an action plan for the project's next steps.

Fifty years of mining, a new chapter

CBG said the project would draw on more than five decades of industrial experience mining bauxite in Guinea, aiming to move the company beyond raw ore export toward local value creation. A CBG refinery would mark a significant strategic shift for the venture, which has exported bauxite through the port of Kamsar since the 1970s without ever processing it domestically into alumina.

Joining a crowded field

If completed, a CBG refinery would become the fourth alumina refinery project in Guinea's Boké region, alongside three already under construction: one led by China's State Power Investment Corporation, one by Winning Consortium Alumina Guinea — a subsidiary of Société Minière de Boké — and one by Chalco Guinea Company. Those three projects are expected to be commissioned between 2028 and 2029, giving Guinea a template, and a timeline, against which to measure CBG's own progress.

Why Guinea keeps pushing refineries

Guinea's government has made domestic alumina refining a central plank of its mining policy, arguing that exporting raw bauxite forgoes the far greater value captured by processing it into alumina before shipment. The country's dispute with EGA over Guinea Alumina Corporation's licence, and its broader export policies, have both been driven by the same underlying goal: converting Guinea's position as the world's top bauxite exporter into a domestic alumina and, eventually, aluminium industry.

What happens next

CBG and its shareholders will need to move from an agreed action plan to a financed, engineered project, a path that has taken the other three Boké refineries years to navigate. Given CBG's decades-long presence in Guinea, its progress will be watched closely as a test of whether the country's oldest bauxite miner can match the newer entrants now building the first alumina capacity on Guinean soil.