Abstract
This The mineral potential in Egypt is quite high. Almost all sorts of industrial minerals such as metallic and non-metallic commodities exist in commercial amounts. However, Egypt imports many of the mineral commodities needed for the local mineral industries. The main reason for this is that the investors, either the governmental or the private sectors, refrain from investing into the mineral industry for prospecting, evaluation, and developing the mining and mineral processing technologies. This is because the return on investment in the mining industry is generally low and the pay back period is relatively long compared with easy-to-get money projects. Another reason is the disarray of the mining laws and regulations and lack of administrative capability to deal with domestic and international investors and solve the related problems. Also, lack of skilled personnel in the field of mining and mineral processing is an additional factor for the set back of the mining industry in Egypt. This is why the mining technology in Egypt is not very far from being primitive and extremely simple, with the exception of the underground mining of coal, North of Sinai, and Abu-Tartur phosphate mining, where fully automated long wall operations are designed. Also, the recent gold and tin-tantalum-niobium projects are being designed on modern surface mining and mineral processing technologies. The present review presents an overview of the most important metallic mineral commodities in Egypt, their geological background, reserves and production rates. A brief mention of the existing technologies for their exploitation is also highlighted.
Highlights
Egyptian Civilization is one of the most ancient civilizations in the world, which practiced mining and processing of metallic and non-metallic ores
At Gabal Kamel area, Banded Iron Formation (BIF) was recorded in the area between latitude 22 ̊00' to 22 ̊20' North and longitude 25 ̊30' to 26 ̊40' East, which are covered by Archean to early Proterozoic rocks [9]
The following areas are open for serious investment in the mineral industry, metallic commodities, in Egypt: 1) Mining and Mineral Processing of iron ores at: Uwaynat (Western Desert), Eastern Desert, Baharya
Summary
Egyptian Civilization is one of the most ancient civilizations in the world, which practiced mining and processing of metallic and non-metallic ores. The ancient Egyptians quarried the dimensional stones in a very orderly manner to obtain geometrically shaped blocks with exact dimensions to build tombs, temples and pyramids They cut-from extremely hard rocks such as granite, gabbros, and granodiorites-obelisks and blocks for hewing statues and for recording their history on them. The Ancient Egyptians had an excellent sense and knowledge about geology, survey, rock mechanics and metallurgical processing They worked their way out in open pits, open cast, and underground mining. There are evidences that the Ancient Egyptians mined and extracted gold, silver, copper, and zinc They used these metals in their pure state and/or as alloys to suit certain purposes. They designed and produced several hard alloys such as bronze (90% Copper and 10 % zinc) They traced all sorts of gem stones in Sinai, Eastern Desert, and Western Desert. The largest mining operation, which is the iron ore mining, does not exceed 3 million ton/year [2]
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