Xinhua reported that a significant step was made in the efforts to start a large scale iron ore mining in Cameroon’s Mbalam region following signing of an agreement in Yaounde between the country’s authorities and Cam Iron company.
Cam Iron will operate the project, which is expected to be producing 35 million tons of iron, for the next 25 years at a total cost of 8.7 billion US dollars.
Mr Louis Paul Motaze, an official from Cameroon’s prime minister’s office, said that the signing of the agreement after 9 years of negotiations, marks a successful end to the process that began in 2005 with the issuance of an exploration permit to Cam Iron, a subsidiary of an Australian mining group, Sundance Resources Ltd.
Mr Emmanuel Bonde, Cameroon’s Mines and Industry Minister, said that the mining site which is situated in the eastern parts of the country, extends to Nabeba in the northern parts of the Republic of Congo.
In this regard, Mr Bonde said that out of the total iron ore produced from the mining site, a quarter will come from Cameroon’s Mbalam region while two thirds will be mined from Congo’s Nabeba iron ore deposits.
He said that the integrated large scale project will also include the construction of a 510 kilometer railway line running from Mbalam to Kribi in the South where a Chinese company is constructing a deep water port as well as an ore terminal at Lolabe port in Kribi.
According to results of the feasibility studies, the project is expected to generate over USD 100 billion. In Mbalam, the iron ore deposits are estimated to be spread on a radius of 783 square kilometers with a mass of about 200 billion tonne of iron ore.
He added that from the date of signing the agreement in the presence of financial partners who included officials of a Chinese group called Honlong and China Development Bank as well as the directors of Sundance, Cam Iron has a maximum of 18 months to acquire the funding in order to receive the mining license.