The richest iron ore deposits in West Africa have long attracted the attention of mining and steel groups. Now companies are making new attempts to consolidate their presence in the region.
The abundance of iron ore reserves can make West Africa a new world center for the extraction of this raw material. According to Renaissance Capital, 100-150 million tons of ore can be mined annually in the region. Of course, this could not go unnoticed by the “big three”: Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton were the first to enter enticing territory. In August of this year, Xstrata took this path by making an offer to buy Sphere Minerals, which is exploring several iron ore deposits in Mauritania. It is quite logical, because the proposed tax on excess profits of mining companies in Australia is pushing miners to geographical diversification. Moreover, Brazil may well follow the example of the Australian authorities. And in principle, the mining giants are trying not to miss a single opportunity to expand the reserve base.
However, investing in West Africa comes with significant risks. Some countries are struggling to get out of protracted civil wars - political instability is very dangerous for investors, as well as underdeveloped legislation in the field of subsoil use. Leading experts talk about it. According to Calum Baker, an analyst at the British consultancy CRU Group, the region will increase iron ore production in the coming years, but political risks are high - there are examples when governments took assets from companies with little or no reason. Macquarie Bank analysts agree, writing in a recent report: “It's safe to say that some West African commodities will soon enter the maritime trade. However, many of the iron ore projects, potentially representing more than 10% in the host country, run the risk of changing government policy regarding the growth of social insurance, royalties, and inaction can lead to an unexpected loss of rights.”
For example, Rio Tinto in 2008 lost part of the territory of the Simandou field in Guinea. The government of this state withdrew the license granted to the company for the northern part of the deposits, since this part was not developed for about three years. The authorities demanded that the company remove its equipment from there, threatening otherwise to cancel the license for the southern part of the field. Characteristically, the new government also supported the decision of its predecessor: it was announced that the liquidation of the license was legal, and this is part of the standard procedure - the rights to a field that has not been developed for three years are canceled. Later, the northern part of Simandou was transferred to BSG Resources, 51% of whose shares were acquired by Vale, paying $ 2.5 billion. In this situation, Rio Tinto announced a month ago that it would invest an additional $170 million in a mine, port and infrastructure on its remaining portion of Simandou. Rio Tinto outsourced the design work to China's state-owned mining company, Aluminum Corp. of China and expressed its readiness for full cooperation with the government of Guinea, which expects the early start of production at this field. Such requirements create problems for foreign companies. Many of them acquired the rights to iron ore deposits “in reserve”, not at all planning their immediate development. However, this is at odds with the plans of governments to start earning revenues from the sale of ore at record prices as soon as possible.
In addition, they took away the license from the South African Kumba Iron Ore, which carried out exploration of the Faleme deposit in Senegal. In 2007, the government granted Arcelor Mittal the right to develop this deposit. Since then, Kumba has been in legal battles with the steel company demanding compensation for damages, but the parties recently agreed to a settlement of the problem (on what terms is unknown). At the same time, Faleme is still not being developed - last year, Arcelor Mittal stopped work due to a collapse in demand and prices, and now it is trying to negotiate the creation of infrastructure with an Indian partner, the state-owned mining company National Mineral Development Corp. (NMDC). The NMDC estimates that infrastructure costs will account for about 75% of all investment in the project. In particular, it is necessary to build a railway with a length of 750 km, which will connect Faleme with a port near Dakar.
In total, Macquarie names 22 potential iron ore projects in the region and indicates that not all of them will be realized. The first export shipments of iron ore from West Africa are planned no earlier than 2011. According to Macquarie analysts, Sierra Leone, where African Minerals and London Mining PLC operate, will be the first to supply ore to the world market, Guinea or Liberia, where Arcelor Mittal has become more active, will be next.
Now the Russian Severstal has joined the world giants. The company owns 61.5% of the Putu project in Liberia. On September 15, Severstal and its partner African Aura (38.5%) announced the signing of an agreement with the government of Liberia to develop the deposit. According to the Russians, the cost of the project will be $2.5 billion. The company has already invested $30 million in exploration and feasibility studies and expects to complete the project feasibility study by September 2012.
It seems that political risks in Liberia will gradually decrease. After many years civil war(1989-2003), an interim government was formed in the country, which in January 2006 transferred powers to a popularly elected government, which is actively restoring the country's economy. The state urgently needs foreign investment, and the authorities are very favorable to investors who are ready to restore the mining industry destroyed by the war. So the plans of Arcelor Mittal and Severstal are fully supported by the government. True, the authorities are not inclined to give in on royalties, and Arcelor Mittal, the first to appear in this country, is forced to show unusual generosity in social spending. Probably, this is waiting for Severstal. But, judging by the trends in the global iron ore market, the game is worth the candle.
A large photo report about my favorite mining and processing plant, one of the leading producers of iron ore: it accounts for more than 15% of commercial ore production in Russia. Filming took place over five years and took over 25 days in total. In this report the most juice is squeezed out.
Stoilensky GOK was founded in 1961 in Stary Oskol, Belgorod Region. The main products of the plant are iron ore concentrate and iron sinter ore for the production of iron and steel.
Today there will be a lot of photos, so it's better not to go under the cat with modems or roaming;)
1. Iron ores are natural mineral formations containing iron and its compounds in such a volume that the industrial extraction of iron from these formations is advisable. SGOK takes raw materials from the Stoilenskoye deposit of the Kursk magnetic anomaly. From the outside, such objects look like most industries - some kind of workshops, elevators and pipes.
2. Rarely, when public viewing platforms are made on the edge of the quarry bowl. In Stoilensky GOK, it is possible to approach this huge funnel, with a surface diameter of more than 3 km and a depth of about 380 meters, only with passes and approvals. From the outside, you can’t say that Moscow City skyscrapers will easily fit in this hole, and they won’t even hang around)
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3. They are mining open way. In order to get to rich ore and quartzite, miners remove and dump tens of millions of cubic meters of earth, clay, chalk, and sand into dumps.
4. Loose rocks are mined with backhoes and draglines. "Backhoes" look like the usual buckets, only in the SGOK quarry they are large - 8 cubic meters. m.
5. In such a bucket, 5-6 people or 7-8 Chinese people can freely accommodate.
6. Loose rocks, which miners call overburden, are transported to dumps by trains. Every week the horizons on which the work is done change their shape. Because of this, it is constantly necessary to shift the railway tracks, the network, transfer railway crossings, etc.
7. Dragline. The bucket on a 40-meter boom is thrown forward, then the ropes pull it towards the excavator.
8. Under own weight the bucket rakes in about ten cubic meters of soil in one throw.
10. Machine room.
11. The driver needs a lot of skill to unload such a bucket into the car without damaging the sides and without hitting the high-voltage line of the locomotive contact network.
12. Excavator boom.
13. A train with dump cars (these are self-tipping cars) removes overburden to dumps.
16. Reverse work takes place on the dumps - the roof of the wagons is stored by an excavator in neat hills.
17. At the same time, loose rocks are not just piled up, but stored separately. In the language of miners, such warehouses are called man-made deposits. Chalk is taken from them for the production of cement, clay - for the production of expanded clay, sand - for construction, black soil - for land reclamation.
18. Mountains of Cretaceous deposits. All this is nothing but deposits of prehistoric marine life- mollusks, belemnites, trilobites and ammonites. About 80 - 100 million years ago, a shallow ancient sea splashed in this place.
19. One of the main attractions of Stoilensky GOK is the mining and stripping complex (GVK) with the key unit - the KU-800 walking bucket wheel excavator. The GVK was manufactured in Czechoslovakia, assembled in a SGOK quarry for two years, and put into operation in 1973.
20. Since then, a bucket wheel excavator has been walking along the sides of the quarry and cutting off chalk deposits with an 11-meter wheel.
21. The height of the excavator is 54 meters, weight - 3 thousand 350 tons. This is comparable to the weight of 100 subway cars. From this amount of metal, 70 T-90 tanks could be made.
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22. The excavator rests on a turntable and moves with the help of “skis”, which are driven by hydraulic cylinders. To operate this monster, a voltage of 35 thousand volts is required.
23. Mechanic Ivan Tolmachev is one of those people who participated in the launch of the KU-800. More than 40 years ago, in 1972, immediately after graduating from the Gubkinsky Mining Technical School, Ivan Dmitrievich was accepted as an assistant to the driver of a rotary excavator. That's when it had to young specialist run up the stairs! The fact is that the electrical part of the excavator turned out to be far from perfect, so more than one hundred steps had to be overcome until you find the reason for the failure of one or another node. Plus, the documents were not completely translated from Czech. In order to delve into the schemes, I had to sit over the papers at night, because by morning it was necessary to figure out how to eliminate this or that malfunction.
24. The secret of the longevity of the KU-800 is in its special mode of operation. The fact is that, in addition to scheduled repairs during the working season, in winter the entire complex becomes overhaul and performing rebuilds of conveyor lines. Three months GVK prepare for the new season. During this time, they manage to put in order all the components and assemblies.
25. Alexei Martianov in the cab overlooking the excavator rotor. The rotating three-story wheel is impressive. In general, traveling through the galleries of the KU-800 is breathtaking.
- You have these impressions, probably already a little dulled?
- Yes, there is, of course. I have been working here since 1971.
- So, in those years, this excavator did not exist yet?
- There was a platform on which it was just beginning to be mounted. He walked here in knots, for about three years he was assembled by the Czech installation chiefs.
- Was it an unprecedented technique at that time?
- Yes, this is the fourth car that came off the assembly line of the Czechoslovak manufacturer. The newspapermen attacked us then. Even in the journal "Science and Life" they wrote about our excavator.
27. Hanging halls with electrical equipment and switchgear serve as a counterweight to the boom.
Of course, I understand that this is a walking excavator. But I still can’t imagine how such a “colossus” can actually walk?
- She walks very well, turns well. A step of two and a half meters takes only one and a half minutes. Here, at hand, is the step control panel: skis, base, stop, excavator turn. In a week we are preparing to change the place of deployment, we will go in the opposite direction, to where the conveyor is being built.
28. Aleksey Martianov, foreman of GVK machinists, talks about his excavator with love, as if it were an animated object. He says that he has nothing to be ashamed of in this: each of his crew also treats his car. Moreover, the specialists of the Czech manufacturer, who oversee major repairs of the excavator, are beginning to speak of a living thing.
29. Only on the top platform of the excavator, forty meters from the ground, you feel its true dimensions. It seems that you can get lost in the stairways, but in these intricacies of metal and cable communications there are also workers and engine rooms, a hall with electrical equipment, switchgear, compartments for hydraulic units for walking, turning, devices for lifting and extending a rotary boom, cranes, conveyors.
With all the metal and energy intensity of the excavator, only 6 people work in its crew.
31. Narrow iron ladders in places with moving steps entangle the excavator like forest paths. Endless rivers of wires run through the excavator.
32. - How do you manage it? Do you have any secrets? When, for example, a new person comes, in how many months will he be able to be seated here, in this chair?
- It's not months, it's years. Learning to work in the cockpit, crash, walk is one thing, but to feel the car is quite another. After all, the distance from me to the driver of the loading boom is 170 meters, and we must hear and see each other well. I don't know what to feel with my back. There is, of course, a speakerphone here. All five drivers can hear me. And I hear them. You also need to know the electrical circuits, the device of this huge machine. Who masters quickly, and who only after ten years becomes a machinist.
33. The design of the KU-800 still surprises with engineering solutions. First of all, optimal calculations of bearing units and parts. Suffice it to say that excavators similar in performance to the Czech KU-800 are much larger in size and weight, they are up to one and a half times heavier.
34. The chalk cut by the rotor travels about 7 kilometers through a conveyor system and is stored in the chalk mountains with the help of a spreader.
35. For a year, such a volume of chalk is sent to the dumps, which would be enough to fill a two-lane road 1 meter high and 500 kilometers long.
36. Loading boom driver. In total, a shift of 4 people works on the spreader.
37. Spreader - a smaller copy of the KU-800 except for the absence of a rotary wheel. The excavator is the opposite.
40. Now main useful mineral in the quarry of Stoilensky GOK, these are ferruginous quartzites. Iron in them is from 20 to 45%. Those stones where iron is more than 30% actively react to the magnet. With this trick, miners often surprise guests: “How is it that ordinary-looking stones are suddenly attracted by a magnet?”
41. There is no longer enough rich iron ore in the quarry of Stoilensky GOK. She covered a not very thick layer of quartzite and she was almost worked out. Therefore, quartzite is now the main iron ore raw material.
43. To get quartzites, they are first blown up. To do this, a network of wells is drilled and explosives are poured into them.
44. The depth of the wells reaches 17 meters.
46. Stoilensky GOK conducts up to 20 rock explosions per year. In this case, the mass of explosives used in one explosion can reach 1000 tons. In order to prevent a seismic shock, the explosive is detonated by a wave from well to well with a delay of a fraction of a second.
47. Badaboom!
50. Large excavators load ore crushed by an explosion into dump trucks. About 30 BelAZ trucks with a carrying capacity of 136 tons each operate in the SGOK open pit.
52. 136-ton Belaz is filled with a hill for 5-6 revolutions of the excavator.
55. Vzhzhzhzh!
60. Caterpillar the size of a man.
64. Dmitry, the driver of Belaz, says that driving this "elephant" is no more difficult than the Six Zhiguli.
65. But the rights must be obtained separately. The main thing is to feel the dimensions and never forget how much weight you work with.
73. I'm out of focus three years ago. not yet thinner)
76. Belaz transport ore to the transfer warehouses in the middle part of the quarry, where other excavators are already reloading it into dump cars.
80. Excavator and its operator.
81. Loaded trains of 11 wagons are sent to the processing plant. Electric locomotives have to work hard, because transporting 1150 tons of ore along the ascending serpentine is not an easy task.
82. Loaded for ascent and empty for descent.
85. At the processing plant, ore is unloaded into the mouths of huge crushers.
86. Here it becomes clear why dump cars are used for transportation. If the wagons did not tip over themselves, it would be a difficult task to unload them.
87. During the enrichment process, the ore goes through several stages of crushing. On each of them, it becomes smaller and smaller.
88. The purpose of the process is to get the ore ground to almost fine sand.
89. The magnetic component is taken from this crushed mass of quartzites with the help of magnetic separators.
92. In this way, an iron ore concentrate with an iron content of 65 - 66% is obtained. Everything that is not magnetized to the separators is called waste rock or tailings by the miners.
94. Tailings are mixed with water and pumped into special reservoirs - tailings.
95. In fact, tailings also contain iron, only in a non-magnetic state. Extracting it at this stage of technology development is unprofitable. In addition, the tailings contain gold and other valuable elements, which are also not recovered due to their low content.
96. But at the same time, tailings are considered man-made deposits, because, perhaps, in the future they will learn how to extract valuable elements from them. In order to prevent wind from blowing up dust, which causes the wrath of environmentalists and local residents, the tailings are constantly poured with rain with a rainbow. The benefit of water from the quarry - heaps!
97. To prevent the quarry from flooding with water, at a depth of about 200 meters underground, a girdle network of drifts of the drainage shaft was punched underground.
99. From drifts, the total length of which is about 40 kilometers, upwards, wells were drilled into the quarry, which intercept groundwater.
102. Through the drifts of the mine, water flows into the water collectors and is pumped out to the surface by large pumps.
105. Every hour, 4,500 cubic meters of water are pumped out of the drainage mine of Stoilensky GOK. This is equal to the volume of 75 railway tanks.
108. Now the construction of a pelletizing plant is being completed at Stoilensky GOK. At this plant, roasted pellets will be made from iron ore concentrate in order to smelt pig iron at the Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works.
110. The design capacity of the factory is 6 million tons of pellets per year. This is approximately the volume that NLMK Group, which includes SGOK, is currently forced to buy from third-party manufacturers. Stoilensky pellets will make pig iron production more efficient.
112. Future chimney.
114. So far, the finished product of the plant looks like this. It seems that the cars are not completely filled, which is not rational. But in fact, this is their maximum carrying capacity. Do not forget that this is not some kind of black soil, but heavy metal.
115. The 115th photo has already gone, but I still haven’t shown or told so many interesting things)
116. Equipment, robots, pumps - all this is wonderful. But the most important thing in metallurgy is people.
117. Many thanks for the help in the work of the press service of Stoilensky GOK and separately to Nikolai Zasolotsky! I hope to visit you again this year ;)
Thank you very much for your attention and patience!
Photographers: Dmitry Chistoprudov and Nikolai Rykov,
Iron ore began to be mined by man many centuries ago. Even then, the advantages of using iron became obvious.
Finding mineral formations containing iron is quite easy, as this element makes up about five percent of the earth's crust. Overall, iron is the fourth most abundant element in nature.
It is impossible to find it in its pure form, iron is contained in a certain amount in many types of rocks. Iron ore has the highest iron content, the extraction of metal from which is the most economically profitable. The amount of iron contained in it depends on its origin, the normal proportion of which is about 15%.
Chemical composition
The properties of iron ore, its value and characteristics are directly dependent on its chemical composition. Iron ore may contain varying amounts of iron and other impurities. Depending on this, there are several types of it:
- very rich when the iron content in ores exceeds 65%;
- rich, the percentage of iron in which varies from 60% to 65%;
- medium, from 45% and above;
- poor, in which the percentage of useful elements does not exceed 45%.
The more side impurities in the composition of iron ore, the more energy is needed for its processing, and the less efficient is the production of finished products.
The composition of the rock may be a combination of various minerals, waste rock and other impurities, the ratio of which depends on its deposit.
Magnetic ores are distinguished by the fact that they are based on an oxide having magnetic properties, but with strong heating they are lost. The amount of this type of rock in nature is limited, but the iron content in it may not be inferior to red iron ore. Outwardly, it looks like solid crystals of black and blue.
Spar iron ore is an ore rock based on siderite. Very often it contains a significant amount of clay. This type of rock is relatively hard to find in nature, which, given the small amount of iron content, makes it rarely used. Therefore, it is impossible to attribute them to industrial types of ores.
In addition to oxides, other ores based on silicates and carbonates are found in nature. The amount of iron content in the rock is very important for its industrial use, but the presence of useful by-products such as nickel, magnesium, and molybdenum is also important.
Application industries
The scope of iron ore is almost completely limited to metallurgy. It is used mainly for the smelting of pig iron, which is mined using open-hearth or converter furnaces. Today, cast iron is used in various spheres of human activity, including in most types of industrial production.
Various iron-based alloys are used to no lesser extent - steel has found the widest application due to its strength and anti-corrosion properties.
Cast iron, steel, and various other iron alloys are used in:
- Mechanical engineering, for the production of various machine tools and apparatus.
- Automotive industry, for the manufacture of engines, housings, frames, as well as other components and parts.
- Military and missile industries, in the production of special equipment, weapons and missiles.
- Construction, as a reinforcing element or erection of load-bearing structures.
- Light and food industry, as containers, production lines, various units and devices.
- Mining industry, as special machinery and equipment.
Iron ore deposits
The world's iron ore reserves are limited in quantity and location. The areas of accumulation of ore reserves are called deposits. Today, iron ore deposits are divided into:
- Endogenous. They are characterized by a special location in the earth's crust, usually in the form of titanomagnetite ores. The forms and locations of such inclusions are varied, they can be in the form of lenses, layers located in the earth's crust in the form of deposits, volcano-like deposits, in the form of various veins and other irregular shapes.
- Exogenous. This type includes deposits of brown iron ore and other sedimentary rocks.
- Metamorphogenic. Which include quartzite deposits.
Deposits of such ores can be found throughout our planet. The largest number of deposits is concentrated on the territory of the post-Soviet republics. Especially Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Countries such as Brazil, Canada, Australia, the USA, India and South Africa have large iron reserves. However, in almost every country the globe there are developed deposits, in case of a shortage of which, the breed is imported from other countries.
Enrichment of iron ores
As stated, there are several types of ores. The rich can be processed immediately after being extracted from the earth's crust, others must be enriched. In addition to the beneficiation process, ore processing includes several stages, such as sorting, crushing, separation and agglomeration.
To date, there are several main ways of enrichment:
- Flushing.
It is used to clean ores from side impurities in the form of clay or sand, which are washed out using water jets under high pressure. This operation allows you to increase the amount of iron content in poor ore by about 5%. Therefore, it is used only in combination with other types of enrichment.
- Gravity cleaning.
It is carried out using special types of suspensions, the density of which exceeds the density of the waste rock, but is inferior to the density of iron. Under the influence of gravitational forces, the side components rise to the top, and the iron sinks to the bottom of the suspension.
- magnetic separation.
The most common enrichment method, which is based on a different level of perception of magnetic forces by the components of the ore. Such separation can be carried out with dry rock, wet rock, or in an alternate combination of its two states.
For the processing of dry and wet mixtures, special drums with electromagnets are used.
- Flotation.
For this method, crushed ore in the form of dust is lowered into water with the addition of a special substance (flotation agent) and air. Under the action of the reagent, iron joins the air bubbles and rises to the surface of the water, and the waste rock sinks to the bottom. Components containing iron are collected from the surface in the form of foam.
