Guinea’s military government has taken back 51 mining licences as it steps up efforts to repossess claims or concessions where operations have either not been launched or where it says permits are being underutilised, its information minister said.
Reuters first reported that the government planned to cancel the licences on Thursday. Fana Soumah announced in a televised address late Thursday night that Guinea’s military ruler Mamady Doumbouya had signed the repossession decree, which covers bauxite, gold, diamond, graphite and iron concessions.
The concessions had been “returned free of charge to the state,” Soumah said, citing multiple articles in Guinea’s mining code as legal justification for the licence withdrawals. Guinea is home to the world’s largest reserves of bauxite, the main ore used to produce aluminum, and its exports are crucial to global production of the industrial metal, particularly in China and Russia.
For the rest of this article: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/guinea-repossess-51-mining-licences-information-minister-says-2025-05-16/