Bellzone Holding, a unit of Bellzone Mining of Australia, plans to exploit a 1 billion metric ton iron-ore deposit in central Guinea at a cost of $4.5 billion.

The company has the cash needed to invest in the project without elaborating. Managing Director Alexandre Orlov said, “We are in talks with the Guinean government about signing an agreement in December 2008 to exploit the deposit. If we have an agreement by the end of the year, we will begin production in about 2011 or 2012.”

Guinea, a west African nation about the size of Oregon, is the world’s top exporter of bauxite, an ore used in the manufacture of aluminum. Rio Tinto Group, the world’s second- biggest iron-ore producer, plans to develop the $6 billion Simandou project in the country to triple output of the steelmaking raw material to more than 600 million tons. Guinea also has deposits of diamonds and uranium, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Bellzone expects to initially produce about 50 million metric tons of iron ore annually in a project that will employ as many as 25,000 workers, Orlov said in an interview on Sept. 5 in Conakry, the capital.

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