SimFer Names Kox Gomba CEO as Simandou Moves From Construction to Operations
SimFer, the Guinean joint venture between Rio Tinto and Chinalco that operates Blocks 3 and 4 of the Simandou iron ore deposit, announced on September 2 that Kox Gomba will become chief executive officer, replacing Chris Aitchison (Financial Afrik). Aitchison, who led the company since 2022, moves to a new role as head of projects within Rio Tinto (Guineematin). Gomba, who has spent nearly eight years at Rio Tinto and previously ran operations at Richards Bay Minerals in South Africa, joined Simandou in May 2026 as chief operating officer, tasked specifically with preparing the transition from construction to operations (Guinée7).
The timing of the handover is not incidental. Aitchison led SimFer through the entire construction phase, from groundbreaking on the mine and its associated rail and port infrastructure to the start of production and first exports. Gomba was brought in months before this change specifically to prepare operational readiness, according to Elias Scafidas, Rio Tinto Iron Ore’s director of international operations and chairman of SimFer’s board (Le Révélateur 224). Placing an operations specialist at the top, rather than another construction-phase executive, signals that Rio Tinto considers the build largely finished and the company’s central task now is running the mine, rail and port at scale rather than delivering them.
That reading is reinforced by SimFer’s own public statements. In an August briefing, Aitchison said the project was maintaining strong momentum across the board, with ore shipments increasing and rail infrastructure expanding through a growing locomotive fleet, and reaffirmed a target of 60 million tonnes a year by 2028 (Guineematin). SimFer holds an estimated 1.5 billion tonnes of reserves across Blocks 3 and 4, with Rio Tinto and Chinalco as the industrial partners and the Guinean state holding a 15 percent stake, and total mine, rail and port spending documented at 8.6 billion dollars according to Rio Tinto’s financial statements (NotreAfrik).
Simandou is presented by Guinean authorities as the anchor of the Simandou 2040 programme, the government’s official development strategy built around the project (Simandou Mining Summit). This leadership change does not say anything definitive about that programme. But it invites a specific reading: the phase in which SimFer had to prove it could build is now largely behind it. What remains to be shown, and what this change appears to anticipate, is whether the company can sustain the export volumes it has announced over time.
What to watch next: whether SimFer’s reported 2026 shipment volumes, previously put at 15 to 20 million tonnes against the eventual 120 million tonne combined target for the wider Simandou consortium, begin to close that gap under the new operational leadership, and whether Gomba’s first public statements set out a specific timeline toward the 60 million tonne 2028 target rather than reaffirming it in general terms.