The mining project of Ghar-Djebilet (Tindouf) iron deposit, will be launched in January, the Minister of Mines in Algeria , Mohamed Arkab said on Tuesday, 05 January 2021, specifying that negotiations are underway with a foreign partner for the construction of a complex, producing 12 million tonnes/year.
“The first major project to come to fruition is the operation of Ghar-Djebilet iron mine. The President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, instructed me during the meeting of the Council of Ministers in order to go fast and to finish this operation in January “, declared Mr Arkab on the National Radio.
“It is a big challenge for us to finish the month of January and bring the first project to fruition and start work as soon as possible. We will soon be building the mining complex and moving to production in the short-term. We committed the President Tebboune”, he added.
Thus, it will first be a question of building an iron mining complex in this region (Tindouf), which will produce in the very short term 12 million tonnes/year, including two types of raw materials to satisfy the national demand in one hand, with an “appreciable level of a content exceeding 56%”, and on the other hand, the export market.
For the realization of this complex, he specified that his department was in the phase of “direct discussions” with the foreign partner selected for the exploitation for this mine; stressing that it was a “friendly” country, with which Algeria has been working on this file for a long time.
He also indicated that the specifications were finalized and that the problem of dephosphorization, which constituted a constraint at the level of this deposit, was identified with the partner to ensure its success by going first through a phase of construction, which is a “necessary pilot phase”.
This project should generate more than 3,000 jobs; including a thousand to be launched at its first phase of exploitation, according to the minister, recalling that the two-mega iron deposits, located in Tindouf, concealing some 3.5 billion tonnes of reserves.
