Guinea's government has warned Russian aluminium group RUSAL that it risks losing its Friguia alumina factory if it does not successfully renegotiate a share transaction with the West African state, Reuters reported. RUSAL said in a statement its purchase of the Friguia factory was legal and that the company had received no official complaint about it from the Guinean authorities. Guinea is the world's top bauxite exporter with around one third of all known reserves of the ore used to make aluminium. The government has identified RUSAL as one of the operators whose contracts will be scrutinised by a minerals and petroleum contracts review committee known as CIRCAM. RUSAL bought 15 percent of the shares in Friguia from the Guinean government two years ago to take full control of the refinery, which has a capacity of around 700,000 tonnes per year. "Regarding the privatisation, the CIRCAM has received instructions from the cabinet to begin renegotiating the price of the sale of Friguia shares to determine the exact value of the factory, under the threat of cancellation, pure and simple, of the privatisation," government spokesman Ousmane Souare said after a cabinet meeting late on Wednesday. RUSAL issued a statement in Moscow saying the transaction was above board. "We have acquired the Friguia bauxite and alumina complex in full accordance with the clauses of an agreement, which had passed all stages of juridical coordination with the government of Guinea and with the procedures existing in that country," the company said in a statement issued to Reuters. "We have not received any official warning of complaints about the agreement or its implementation by us from Guinea's authorities," it said.
