The Rouina mine is one of the oldest operated mines of iron ore in Algeria, its product is used like an adjuvant in the cement industry because the extracted raw material is considered as a low-grade ore. The present paper investigates on the one hand its mineralogical composition with the aim of understanding the morphology, texture, phase identification and iron properties; and on the other hand studying the influence of washing on its quality. For characterization, X-Ray Diffractions (XRD) of collected samples, analysis of thin sections with scanning electron microscope (SEM), and a sieve analysis followed by washing of each size fraction using a sieve mesh 0.074 µm were adopted. The obtained results revealed that the raw material of the Rouina mine is clayey low-grade iron ore and it is possible to obtain a pre-concentrate through the washing method. This article suggests in addition conducting deep studies of Rouina iron ore with physico-chemical characterization in order to confirm the prior results (mineralogical characterization) and then to permit a suitable enrichment method to be applied with the aim of obtaining a high-grade iron ore acceptable for the metallurgical industry.