During iron ore producer Vale's conference call Thursday, the company said it has until the end of 2012 to decide whether or not it will go ahead with its Simandou iron ore project in Guinea. The Simandou project--which plans for a 50 million metric ton per year capacity of high-grade iron ore--ran into licensing problems when the government of Guinea began audits of companies operating mines in their country. SteelOrbis reported the audit on February 8, 2012, when the news broke that Vale was among the companies being targeted by the audit.
The Simandou project is the largest project that Vale is working on this year. A smaller section of the project, Zogota, will begin producing iron ore this year as it is already fully licensed by the Guinean government.