There’s only a handful of people that know how hard Canyon MD Phil Gallagher has worked over the past few years to position the company and investors for what will imo turn into a fantastic investment. No one I know of has such an intimate knowledge of the potential awakening of Cameroon’s mining and infrastructure development (finally) after a number of false starts. The Cameroon government and people have had to watch countries like Guinea thrive with its bauxite industry quickly becoming the new go to feed lot for China’s alumina/aluminium industry. So credit where it is very much due. The Cameroon Government built the Kribi deep water port, fit for panamax vessels and it sent a message that Cameroon is finally open for business. Port infrastructure in place, new roads and rail being built to open up the area and the Government now wanting to attract investment in new mining projects that are ‘ready to go’ in the next two years or less.
Enter Phil Gallagher, Tolga Kumova and advisers. Tolga has been sniffing around this opportunity for a couple of years, anecdotes from the last Diggers and Dealers was he was telling all and sundry he had found the next SYR (however this one in bauxite rather than graphite) and was waiting for Phil Gallagher’s hard work in Cameroon to pay off working with the regulators and Government in Cameroon to get the permit for Minim Martap in place. Now they have it.
As I’ve said often in here, Cameroon has tier one resources in commodities like bauxite and iron ore. Unlike Sundance Resources ill feted attempt to come up with a plan to build and finance a brand new 500km rail line through two countries to get their iron ore DSO to port, Canyon needs a 10km rail spur from the bauxite deposit to an existing rail line (underused and crying out for a flagship user) and at the other end, a new rail connection is ready to be built by the Cameroon Government and its global partner Mota Engil to be able to utilise the Kribi Port to its potential. They want a rail user to make use of the new infrastructure they want to build – guess who? Cameroon’s first globally significantly mining project, owned by Canyon Resources, a tier one bauxite project described by Tolga Kumova as “the world’s best undeveloped bauxite deposit.”
So hats off to the Cameroon Government for finally taking the right steps to take your people and country forward, kudos to Phil Gallagher for your persistence and hard work in getting the permits in place for shareholders to reap the benefits over the next 12 months as the world wide bauxite shortage looms and well done to Tolga Kumova for having the insight and commitment to hunt for the next world class project and to help bring it to fruition.
