John Treat: "As he lay on his death bed in 2008, the former president of Guinea Lansana Conté agreed to hand over a licence worth billions of pounds to mine a share of Simandou, one of the world’s richest undeveloped mineral deposits. "The rights to extract half of the iron ore at Simandou, situated in a mountainous region of Guinea’s south-east, were unceremoniously stripped from Rio Tinto, and awarded to BSG Resources, a mining company based in the offshore haven of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency, whose owner (through a family trust) is Israeli diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz. "Having pledged to invest just $165m to develop a mine at Simandou to secure the rights, BSGR sold a 51 per cent stake in it to Brazilian company Vale for $2.5bn, according to Forbes. BSGR had pulled off the deal of the century, in one observer’s words."
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:16:58 +0000
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