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Guinea has initiated a process to revoke Emirates Global Aluminium’s mining licence in the West African nation, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

Emirates Global Aluminium, equally owned by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, and Dubai sovereign wealth fund the Investment Corporation of Dubai, operates one of the largest bauxite mines in Guinea through its Guinea Alumina Corporation subsidiary.

The company said in a response to Reuters that it continues to “work hard to find a resolution with the government to resume our operations.”

EGA has been in a dispute with the government of Guinea since October last year when its bauxite exports and mining operations were suspended by the authorities, which cited concerns over customs duties.

“We have initiated the withdrawal of GAC’s mining licence. A notification has been sent to this effect,” one of the sources, a senior government official who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak, told Reuters.

Guinea’s move to cancel EGA’s licence reflects a wider trend of resource-rich countries in the region seeking to exert greater control over their mineral wealth, a development that could reshape the global mining sector.

The military-led governments in Guinea, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, in particular, have pushed to rewrite mining laws and contracts, detain mining executives, suspend operations, and seize products as they demand greater control and revenue.

The Emirati company began operating in Guinea in 2019 and exported around 14 million metric tons of bauxite in 2022.

It said in March that the suspension of its activities in Guinea resulted in a decline of exports from 14.1 million wet metric tonnes of bauxite in 2023 to 10.8 million wet metric tonnes in 2024.

Guinea is the world’s second-largest producer after Australia of bauxite, the raw material for aluminum.

EGA’s operation in Guinea includes a 690-square kilometre mining concession that contains around 400 million tonnes of bauxite mineral resources.

(Reporting by Saliou Samb, Hadeel Al Sayegh and Maxwell Akalaare Adombila; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Elaine Hardcastle and Matthew Lewis)