Guinea's treasure: A day in a bauxite mine

Daily blasts shake the Debele mine in the province of Kindia in western Guinea-Conakry. The workers use dynamite to blow up the quarry rock. The rock is made up of bauxite ore, one of the main components for aluminium production.

The bauxite is collected once the smoke has cleared. Lorries transport the rock to the nearby factory, as they have done for decades. It's then broken down in a laborious and time-consuming method.

An easier mining method is used in the open-pit mine next door. A rotary excavator completes several states of the work simultaneously. It digs up the bauxite rock from the ground, breaks it down and loads it on to the lorry. The workers' union is not happy that the excavator replaces 300 employees.

The Russian mine operator bought the excavator from a German company. If the machinery breaks down, the chief engineer is brought in. He and his team received special training in Germany so they can repair the excavator.

The quarry and the open-pit mine lie in western Guinea, near the border to Liberia. The bauxite extraction was started in 1972. Fifty percent of Guinea’s bauxite rock is rated as usable and is therefore of particularly high value.

Russian firms have been operating in the country for over 20 years. The Moscow-based company Rusal is the current operator of the mines in Debele. About 1,200 people work here. Most of them live in the town of Kindia 50 kms away.

Guinea is estimated to have 10 billion tonnes in bauxite reserves. This makes the small West African country the country with the most bauxite in the world. The state exports the mineral in large quantities and is thus able to fill its public coffers.

Most of Guinea's population live off less than one US dollar a day. It is foreign companies that profit from the aluminum end-product. Guinea-Conakry has not been able to establish a domestic processing industry due to corruption and political instability.

It's the end of a working day in Debele. The bauxite is ready for export. Rusal extracts 3.5 million tonnes of the valuable mineral per year. Subsequent processing mainly takes place in Ukraine. There, a high-energy method is used to extract the aluminum from the bauxite ore.

The bauxite is transported by train to the port in Conakry. From there it is shipped to its destination. Five tonnes of bauxite result in about one tonne of aluminum. On the world market, this is worth about US$2,000.