Key Highlights:
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Rainy-season impacts, an AXIS-area disruption, and a major producer’s suspension over labour talks kept overall Guinean bauxite output low despite Alufer’s Bel Air restart.
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Bauxite buyers gained negotiating power as competing offers from Guinea and Australia flooded the seaborne market, while bearish alumina forecasts and expectations of higher Qx Guinean supply kept the market fundamentally loose.
In Guinea, bauxite supply presented a mixed picture: incremental recoveries such as Alufer’s Bel Air restart in August were offset by seasonal rainy-season constraints and an ongoing disruption in the AXIS mining area. Operations were further hit when a major bauxite producer suspended activity amid a labour negotiation deadlock, with talks not due to resume until October x. Against this background, the Guinean government clinched a landmark infrastructure pact with six mining firms, including CDM China, SMB, and Ashapura Minechem, to modernize the Dapilon Line mining road, a move designed to...
