African Minerals in funding talks with Chinese companies

BEIJING - African Minerals Ltd is in talks with several Chinese companies to raise $5 billion in funding to explore the Tonkolli iron ore project in the West African nation of Sierra Leone, a top company official said on Thursday.

The London-listed explorer plans to ship the entire 10.5 billion ton iron ore deposits from the project to China.

"The iron ore mine will have an annual production capacity of 75 million tons in the next six years, and we need Chinese partners to finance development work at the mine," said Frank Timis, chairman of African Minerals.