A consortium of the Societe Miniere de Boke (SMB) and Singapore’s Winning Shipping plans to build Guinea’s first alumina refinery in a $3 billion effort to develop the West African country’s bauxite industry, it said on Monday。

Guinea has about a third of the world’s bauxite reserves and expects to produce over 30 million tonnes in 2017. However, it has no facilities to transform those reserves into higher-grade alumina, which can fetch higher prices on world markets.

The project will include a 120 km (75 mile) railway connecting SMB’s bauxite mines in Boke to the refinery in Dapilon, which will process the raw material for export as alumina, mainly to China, SMB managing director Frederic Bouzigues told Reuters.