Metals & Industrial
Smelting, refining, alumina and aluminium production, steel, coke and downstream industrial manufacturing.
Overview
Smelting, refining, alumina and aluminium production, steel, coke and downstream industrial manufacturing.
Key data
- Type
- metals
- Commodities
- Copper, Bauxite, Aluminium, Iron Ore
- Countries
- Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, South Africa, Guinea, Morocco
- Value chains
- Bauxite → Alumina → Aluminium, Copper to cathode, Iron ore to steel
Related projects
Related companies
miningRio Tinto
London, United Kingdom
Developing blocks 3 and 4 of the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea with partners, including associated rail and port infrastructure.
metalsSouth32
Perth, Australia
Operates Mozal Aluminium in Mozambique and Hillside Aluminium in South Africa, two of Africa's largest smelters.
oil gasDangote Industries
Lagos, Nigeria
Owner of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lekki, Nigeria — the largest single-train refinery in Africa.
miningOCP Group
Casablanca, Morocco
State-owned phosphate and fertilizer group investing heavily in renewable power and green industrial processes.
Business opportunities
Related countries
Mozambique
Mozambique combines world-scale offshore gas in the Rovuma Basin with graphite, heavy sands, coal and the Mozal aluminium smelter, making it one of Africa's most connected energy-to-industry economies.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The DRC hosts the highest-grade major copper mines in the world and dominates global cobalt supply, with the Lobito Corridor reshaping how that output reaches international markets.
Nigeria
Nigeria pairs long-established upstream oil and gas with the continent's largest single-train refinery and the NLNG expansion, under a post-Petroleum Industry Act regulatory framework.
South Africa
South Africa has the continent's deepest mining, metals and chemicals industrial base, and its energy agenda is dominated by Eskom's generation fleet, transmission capacity and the renewables procurement programme.
Guinea
Guinea is the world's leading bauxite exporter and host of Simandou, one of the largest untapped high-grade iron ore deposits, developed together with a trans-Guinean railway and a new port.
Morocco
Morocco pairs the Noor Ouarzazate solar complex and strong wind resources with OCP's phosphate industry and a growing automotive and battery-materials ambition.
Related commodities
Copper
The core electrification metal. African supply is concentrated in the Central African Copperbelt across the DRC and Zambia.
Bauxite
Guinea is the world's largest bauxite exporter; the strategic question is how much value is captured through domestic alumina refining.
Aluminium
Smelting is a power business. Africa's largest smelters — Mozal in Mozambique and Hillside in South Africa — depend on long-term electricity supply.
Iron Ore
Simandou introduces a new high-grade supply source into the seaborne market, with rail and port capacity as the critical path.
Value chains
Bauxite → Alumina → Aluminium
Bauxite mining → alumina refining → aluminium smelting, with power intensity as the binding constraint.
Copper to cathode
Ore → concentrate → smelting/SX-EW → cathode → logistics corridor → global markets.
Iron ore to steel
Iron ore → rail and port logistics → pellets/sinter → steelmaking.
Related infrastructure
Related news
Guinea presses for domestic alumina refining
Policy signalling continues to favour in-country value addition over raw bauxite export, with power supply the decisive constraint.
SimFer begins staged commissioning of Morebaya port for Simandou
Stacker-reclaimers and shiploaders are being commissioned. The port was 85% complete at end-H1 2026, with full commissioning expected in Q1 2027; ore ships via the WCS port meanwhile.
Simandou corridor: rail and port works define the critical path
Guinea's iron ore ambition is bounded less by orebody quality than by the trans-Guinean railway and port commissioning sequence.
Copperbelt growth keeps running into the power question
Expansion plans in Lualaba and North-Western Province depend on firm electricity, placing hydropower rehabilitation and imports at the centre of copper strategy.
Lobito Corridor volumes become the metric to watch for Copperbelt exports
The Atlantic route shortens transit versus east coast alternatives; realised tonnage will determine its strategic weight.
Government reaffirms sovereign guarantee to Mozambique LNG creditors
Mozambique's government has reaffirmed its sovereign guarantee to the lenders financing the Mozambique LNG project, as reported by Club of Mozambique.
Eskom energy availability reaches 68.2%, highest in six years
Eskom reports a financial-year-to-date Energy Availability Factor of 68.2%. Year-to-date diesel spend fell R4.87 billion (80.47%) to R1.18 billion, and the utility reports 5,695 MW of surplus capacity.
Eni to drill up to six wells offshore Mozambique for Coral North; third FLNG pursued
Reuters, via CNBC Africa, reports Eni plans to drill up to six wells for the Coral North project and is pursuing a third floating LNG unit in Mozambique.
Related intelligence
From molecules to metal: can Mozambique convert gas into industry?
Mozambique's strategic question is not whether it can export LNG, but whether any of those molecules become domestic industrial capacity.
Why bauxite value addition keeps stalling
Alumina refining is capital-heavy and energy-intensive; the economics turn on long-term power price, not on ore availability.
African copper growth is a power and logistics problem
Grade is not the constraint in the Central African Copperbelt. Firm electricity and export corridor capacity are.
African liquefaction capacity: what is actually under construction
Separating announced capacity from sanctioned, financed and physically progressing capacity across Nigeria, Mozambique and Egypt.
Country intelligence: Mozambique resource economy
Gas, graphite, coal, heavy sands and aluminium in one economy — and the infrastructure that determines whether they connect.