Liberia’s Blind Risk on Guinea Rail -As Ivanhoe Controversy Lingers

MONROVIA – Liberia’s proposed Concession and Access Agreement (CAA) with Ivanhoe Liberia Ltd. (HPX/SMFG) is facing a critical challenge in the National Legislature, as lawmakers and analysts raise alarms over a gaping omission which is the formal written consent of the Government of Guinea.

The core of the multi-million dollars deal is to grant the company access to the Yekepa-Buchanan rail and port corridor for exporting iron ore mined from Guinea’s Nimba region. However, official Liberian press materials themselves acknowledge that the deal’s operation is “contingent upon necessary bilateral arrangements with the Government of Guinea.” This crucial precondition, which would allow Guinean ore to transit through Liberian territory, has not been publicly produced, leaving the entire agreement resting on an unconfirmed future arrangement.

The lack of public endorsement from Conakry has fueled intense debate at the Capitol where the joint committee drawn from the House and the Senate have expressed deep reservations and have requested documentary evidence that the deal complies with the 2019 Liberia-Guinea Implementation Agreement, which governs cross-border rail and port access.

During a recent public hearing on the CAA, executive officials were reportedly unable to confirm Guinea’s assent, leading to arguments among committee members. Many legislators stressed that ratifying the agreement before securing Guinea’s written approval is “prudent” and essential to prevent Liberia from locking itself into obligations that may be impossible to fulfill.

Industry experts and critics who spoke to The Analyst last week warned that proceeding with ratification without Conakry’s explicit backing exposes Liberia to significant diplomatic and economic risks. One of the experts who spoke from the perspective of what he called a “stranded rail capacity scenario”, said if Guinea withholds or later revokes permission for its ore to be exported via Liberia, the country would be left with a long-term concession that is functionally unusable as intended”

Some political pundits who see a diplomatic fallout in the controversy said any unilateral action by Liberia could undermine the 2019 bilateral framework and strain relations with Guinea, which has increasingly pursued a policy of domestic control over its mineral exports.

Also being discussed is the fact that Guinea has just completed its multi-billion dollars trans-Guinea Railway and a new deep-water port designed to transport its massive iron ore reserves—including from the Simandou and Nimba ranges—entirely through Guinean territory. Analysts suggest this monumental investment is a clear signal that Conakry is prioritizing its own infrastructure, making a cross-border deal with HPX/SMFG via Liberia a strategic mismatch for Guinea.

The 2019 Implementation Agreement itself mandates a clear, two-phase joint approval process involving both countries’ ministerial and monitoring committees. Critics of the proposed CAA argue that this process appears to have been bypassed, leading the Liberian Senate to warn that the country risks diplomatic fallout and treaty violations if these mandatory steps were skipped.

The $5 billion agreement, intended to position Liberia as a key regional logistics hub through transit fees and expanded infrastructure use, now hangs in the balance. The ongoing silence from Conakry, coupled with the rapid completion of Guinea’s own rival railway, raises the question of whether Liberia is rushing to endorse a deal for which its neighbor has already charted a fundamentally different, solitary course.

The fate of the HPX/SMFG deal now rests with the Legislature, which must decide whether to approve a major national obligation without the written guarantee of the country whose resources are central to the entire venture.

The 2019 Liberia-Guinea Implementation Agreement (IA) established a specific, mandatory, two-step legal framework for any Guinean mining company, including HPX/SMFG, to gain access to Liberia’s rail and port infrastructure.

The documentation currently being sought by the Liberian Legislature relates to the failure to publicly produce evidence that these two stages, outlined primarily in Article 5 and Article 9 of the Agreement, were completed.

Here are the specific requirements and the documentation the government is reportedly failing to produce:

The IA mandates a sequential, bilateral approval system before any definitive concession agreement (like the CAA with HPX/SMFG) can be finalized:

Phase	Procedural Requirement (IA Article)	Responsible Party	Missing Documentation / Controversy
Stage 1: Eligibility	Request for Eligibility: The mining operator must first secure official recognition that the project (HPX/SMFG’s Nimba mine) qualifies as an “Approved Infrastructure Project.” Guinea must formally determine that using Liberian infrastructure is essential for the mine’s feasibility.	Government of Guinea (Minister of Mines)	Missing/Disputed: The Liberian Senate has demanded documentary evidence of Guinea’s formal consent and approval of the project’s eligibility under Article 5.1. Multiple reports indicate Guinea has not publicly issued this formal authorization.
Stage 2: Access & Final Endorsement	Request for Access & Joint Review: Once Guinea grants eligibility, the company submits a Request for Access to the Liberian government. This request must then be jointly reviewed and approved by the bilateral oversight bodies.	Joint Liberia-Guinea Committees	Missing: Lawmakers are demanding minutes, reports, or records that prove the following committees were properly constituted and gave their endorsement for the project: 1. The Joint Monitoring Committee (for review). 2. The Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) (for final endorsement).
Access Instrument	The Right of Access is to be executed via a standardized contract based on a template developed by a Technical Secretariat (Article 7).	Both Governments	Controversy: Critics argue the CAA is a “bespoke arrangement” that deviates from the mandated standardized access template and attempts to set independent fees and operational terms, potentially violating provisions intended to harmonize customs and standards (Articles 4 & 8).

In short, the Liberian government’s critics and the Senate are demanding the production of two key documents (or sets of documents) to prove legal and procedural compliance with the 2019 Implementation Agreement which were a written- evidence of Guinea’s formal approval of the HPX/SMFG project as an “Approved Infrastructure Project. And Minutes or reports from the joint Liberia-Guinea Monitoring and Inter-Ministerial Committees that show the deal was jointly reviewed and endorsed, as required by the bilateral agreement.

The absence of this proof suggests to critics that Liberia may have proceeded to negotiate and sign a deal unilaterally, potentially violating its own treaty obligations and risking a major diplomatic fallout with Guinea.