Guinea: Worker fatality forces temporary halt to Rio Tinto’s Simandou iron ore operations

• Friday’s incident follows fatal accident in Oct’24
• Unclear if 1st shipment schedule will be affected

Mysteel Global: The death of an employee from a contracting company at the Simandou iron ore project in West Africa last Friday has prompted Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, the project’s largest shareholder, to suspend all activity at its SimFer mine site, according to a news release on Saturday.

“A thorough investigation will take place together with the relevant authorities to establish the causes of this tragic incident,” said Rio Tinto’s Chief Executive, Jakob Stausholm, in a statement. No details were given, though one media report cited “workplace accident”.

This latest fatality on the Simandou project follows one in October last year, when another worker from a contracting company was killed at SimFer port site, which had also led Rio Tinto to halt its operations.

Notably, the backers of the Simandou project, Rio Tinto Group and Chalco Iron Ore Holdings Ltd, are preparing to begin production soon on what they claim is the world’s largest untapped deposit of high-grade iron ore, aiming for full production capacity of 120 million tonnes (mnt)/year.

The project is divided into four mining blocks, with SimFer, comprising Rio Tinto, Chalco Iron Ore Holdings, and the government of Guinea, holding the mining concession for blocks 3 and 4 in the south. The mining concession for blocks 1 and 2 in the north is held by Winning Consortium Simandou (WCS).

The Simandou project has long been expected to start production by the end of this year, Mysteel Global notes. Notably, Rio Tinto said in its second quarterly report released in July that the first shipment from Simandou would be made by around November, with ore to be railed from the SimFer mine and initially shipped through the WCS port. It is unclear whether the latest suspension in SimFer mine operations will affect this schedule.

Note: This article has been written in accordance with a content exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and BigMint.