Apparent coup in Gabon throws doubts over Fortescue’s move to expand iron ore operations into Africa
A coup in Gabon has added to Andrew Forrest’s woeful week, throwing doubt over his company’s plans to expand its iron ore business in Africa.
Fortescue Metals Group’s plans to expand iron ore business into Africa have been thrown into doubt, with the military in the country appearing to have launched a coup.
According to the BBC, army officers have appeared on television in the country to announce they had taken power and were cancelling the results of the weekend election which returned President Ali Bongo to power – extending the family’s 53-year hold on power in the country.
Fortescue is in the process of building a new iron ore mine at its Belinga project in the country – once a BHP project, until the global mining giant walked away a decade ago, citing geopolitical risks in Africa.
The group signed a mining convention with the regime of President Bongo in January, and executive chairman Andrew Forrest was hailing the company’s decision to invest in the country as a major plank of Fortescue’s growth strategy.
“In June 2023, our Belinga project delivered the first ore on train – just four months after the convention was signed. This massive project will one day be among the largest iron ore mines in the world and will complement our Australian operations, enhancing our blended products and opening new global markets,” he said in the company’s annual report.
The mining agreement with Gabon committed Fortescue to spend at least $US200m to develop a mine.
The coup leaders claimed on Wednesday to have closed the country’s borders until further notice.
A spokeswoman for Fortescue said the company was taking the events in Gabon seriously.
“We have confirmed that all our team members in Gabon are safe and we are providing them with ongoing support,” she said.
Former deputy Fortescue chief executive Julie Shuttleworth is now in charge of Belinga for the company, but is currently in WA after attending Fortescue’s lavish 20th birthday party in the Pilbara last weekend.
Fortescue owns 72 per cent of the project. Its 20 per cent partner in the project would be the Africa Transformation and Industrialisation Fund – a UAE registered company associated with Indian-born businessman Gagan Gupta, former leader of the African operations of Singaporean agriculture giant Olam, and reportedly a close confidant of the Bongo family.
First reports of the purported coup were only just emerging on Wednesday afternoon, and it is not yet clear what backing the officers have in their claim to have taken control.
In 2019 similar claims of a coup, by a relatively junior officer, turned out to have only limited support and the attempted coup was quickly put down.
Ali Bongo succeeded his father as the President of Gabon in 2009, after the death of his father, Omar, who had held power in the resource rich Central African nation for 42 years.
While Mr Bongo has held several elections since them, each has been marred by violence and claims of electoral fraud.
Gabon’s election authority declared Mr Bongo victorious in his quest for a third presidential term on Wednesday, with almost 65 per cent of the vote. But that process was immediately criticised by the main opposition party as fraudulent.
Fortescue’s shares closed up 4.5 per cent, or 92c, to $21.42.