Steel pipe dreams: A China-Guinea and China-Africa lens on prospects for Simandou's iron ore

A shift in the drivers of China's economy underlies contemporary change in iron ore and steel markets. Medium-term structural change also lies on the horizon with rising Chinese investment in Africa. Home to the world's largest known and highest-grade iron ore deposit, as well as a history of friendly political ties with Beijing, Guinea offers an important study of related China-Africa political economy and of the emerging iron ore and steel-intensive industrial ties being promoted by Beijing in Africa. Toward understanding long-run and indirect international iron ore market drivers this paper describes directions in China's prospective interest in Simandou in a China-Guinea and China-Africa economic and political economy context. China's selection of Guinea and Sierra Leone among priority partners in Africa, and promise to help these countries and Liberia realize a prosperous 'post-Ebola' era suggest potential for structural change in their integration with the world economy. For China this could offer vast iron ore resources to feed its win-win industrialisation agenda with and in Africa. It could also see selective commodity markets increasingly driven by intra-developing country dynamics - a trend that itself could induce more favourable prospects for the exploitation of Simandou and for Guinea's economic development.