UPDATE 1-Guinea says to speed up mines contracts review
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CONAKRY, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Guinea, the world's top bauxite exporter, will speed up a mining contracts review, the country's finance minister said on Monday, adding that most mining agreements were "not necessarily" in the national interest.
Economy and Finance Minister Ousmane Dore said the West African country's government had created a ministerial committee to speed up the work of a mining contract review commission, which has made slow progress since its launch last year.
"It's a fact that most mining agreements negotiated in Guinea are not necessarily in the interests of the country," Dore said during a meeting with Obiageli Ezekwesili, World Bank vice president for the Africa region.
The country's new minister of mines, Lounceny Nabe, who was appointed less than two weeks ago, appealed during the same meeting for World Bank help in the contracts review process.
"What we really need is technical support, that would continue until we achieve a positive conclusion to the renegotiation of the agreements with the companies who are present and in production," Nabe said.
"As for the others ... discussions will focus exclusively on the Mining Code ... (without) exception," he said.
A consensus government formed after bloody riots early last year launched a broad-ranging minerals contracts review in April 2007, but so far it has only dealt in detail with contracts involving Russian aluminium producer RUSAL and U.S. oil company Hyperdynamics Corp. (HDY.A).
The government was later dissolved and replaced with a cabinet more closely aligned with the ruling elite surrounding President Lansana Conte, but moves to renegotiate mining contracts have continued.
Anglo-Australian mining group Rio Tinto (RIO.AX)(RIO.L) is trying to retain control of the $6 billion Simandou iron ore project in Guinea, after a letter from President Conte's office cancelled a mining licence.
Rio Tinto says Simandou, where it hopes to start producing iron ore in 2013, is the world's biggest undeveloped ore deposit. (Reporting by Saliou Samb; writing by Alistair Thomson, Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Peter Blackburn)
