Reliving the Swiss Group Alimenta debacle will be very sad indeed.
Malanding
Haruna Darbo wrote:
>
>
> Dear Sir:
> Rip-Off or Not? A Technical View On Australian Company (Canagie)
>
> Batokungku Drilling Site The Gambia West Africa
> In respect of the above, please allow me to explain and clarify to your
> readership a matter that might be of interest to them. It is about a recent
> headline (to be specific on the 15th February 2008) in the Daily Observer and the
> Point Newspapers of The Gambia. The two papers reported on an extra-ordinary
> press conference convened by the Foreign Affairs Minister (Mr. Crispon
> Grey-Johnson) to ‘assure the diplomats, the business community and investors that
> the government of The Gambia is pro-business and pro-investment’. During the
> press conference, Mr. Grey Johnson allegedly claimed that a particular
> Australian company had ‘rip-off’ the Gambian people by not revealing the actual
> minerals that they have been granted license to mine. According to the two
> newspapers, the company had been claiming to be mining the minerals ‘ileminite,
> Zircon, rutile and Silicon’. However according to the articles, when the
> government did its own investigations, it found out that in addition to the
> minerals listed above, the company was also exporting ‘Titanium, iron ore and
> Uranium’.
> This is what the daily Observer quoted Minister Grey Johnson to have said: ‘
> When we (the Gambia government) sent samples of the sand for laboratory
> tests abroad, the results came back showing that in addition to mining Zircon,
> Silicon and Ilmenite, the company was also exporting Titanium, Iron Ore and
> Uranium".
> When I read these articles, it became evident to me that the foreign affairs
> minister has a very shallow understanding, of the issue he was dealing with.
> I will explain why! But first I have to say that his article is not about
> whether the company had ‘rip-off’ the Gambian people or not, instead I want
> explain technical terms and lay bare the misunderstanding demonstrated by the
> Minister. I will first define few terms to bring the readership close to the
> arena of mineral economy.
> What is a mineral? A mineral is any naturally occurring substance with a
> characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure and
> specific physical properties formed through _geological_
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology) processes. Common examples of minerals will include ilmenite (as
> named by Minister), gold, table salt, silica (beach sand), rutile, etc.
> An element is a type of _atom_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom) with a
> distinct _atomic number_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_number) or a
> pure substance with groups of similar atoms. Minerals and elements can
> sometimes be confusing because, some elements are also minerals and all minerals
> consist of either one or more elements. In other words a single element can form
> a mineral, example of such a mineral is gold (Au), gold is both an element
> and a mineral. A group of elements can combine in a ‘special’ way to form a
> mineral; an example of such minerals will include ilmenite or table salt. The
> elements in table salt are sodium and chlorine (NaCl), meaning it should be
> theoretically possible to split table salt into its constituent elements
> namely sodium and chlorine. Elements in ilmenite (FeTiO3) are Iron (Fe), Titanium
> (Ti) and oxygen (O2), and hence should be theoretically possible to split
> ilmenite into titanium, iron and oxygen or some ‘special’ combinations of
> these three elements.
> Now back to the Minister’s allegation/statement”:
> When we (the Gambia government) sent samples of the sand for laboratory
> tests abroad, the results came back showing that in addition to mining Zircon,
> Silicon and Ilmenite, the company was also exporting Titanium, Iron Ore and
> Uranium".
> What I want to inform Mr. Minister is the following: 1. Ilmenite is a ‘
> brand-name’ of a mineral in which Tinanium, oxygen and iron combined in a ‘special
> ’ manner and therefore from which ‘titanium metal, titanium-dioxide and
> iron-oxide’ can be extracted. So if the company is allowed to mine ilmenite and
> the Gambia government discovered that the company is also exporting titanium,
> there is absolutely no contradiction between the government’s findings and
> the company’s claim, since titanium is an indispensable constituent of
> ilmenite. If there is no titanium in ilmenite, then it is NO MORE ilmenite! Ilmenite
> is mined so that titanium and titanium-dioxide can be extracted from it.
> The following will be a more intuitive analogy in every day life. If I buy a
> 50kg bag of groundnut from you, you take a handful sample of the groundnut,
> and send it to a laboratory, and request that they find out the constituents
> of the sample for you. This is what the laboratory report may indicate: the
> sample contains groundnut-oil, groundnut -shells, and soap. if I export the
> groundnut, I will certainly be exporting the oil, groundnut-shells and soap.
> Since the oil is a natural ingredient of groundnut. It will be very unfair for
> you to accuse me of not telling you that I will be getting oil or I am also
> exporting groundnut-shell/soap from the bag of groundnut. It should be
> obvious to you that if you sell groundnut to me you are also selling to me the oil,
> soap and groundnut shells within the groundnut.
> This is the scenario in the minister’s statement about the company. Titanium
> is derived from ilmenite, so if you sell ilmenite to some one, you are as
> well selling titanium to the person and obviously he or she can extract
> titanium from it. I repeat Ilmenite is a name of a mineral from which titanium,
> titanium-dioxide and some iron-oxide can be derived.
> Now lets look at iron ore allegedly claimed by Mr. Grey Johnson to be one
> of the minerals not revealed by the company.
> ORE is a volume of rock containing components of a valuable mineral/s
> occurring in economically viable concentrations for mining. In other words, the
> prerequisite for a mineral laden rock to qualify, as ore is that, the mineral in
> the rock must be a valuable mineral, and must be economically viable for
> mining. For example if there is gold which can be extracted at a cost of $10
> from a rock, but you can only sell the gold at the market at $5, then the
> source of that gold cannot be called ore.
> The above explanation disqualifies the iron constituent of ilmenite as an
> iron ore. Like I explained earlier, iron is one of the constituent minerals of
> ilmenite, but is a minor constituent. That is to say ilmenite is an ore for
> titanium but not an or iron. Nevertheless even if the iron in ilmenite meets
> the criteria to be called an ore, like the ‘groundnut-oil’ from the
> groundnut, the buyer of the ilmenite undoubtedly buys all the ingredient minerals of
> ilmenite. Ilmenite without iron is NO MORE ilmenite! Check the definition of
> minerals above, ilmenite has to have a ‘characteristic chemical composition’
> . If the chemical composition changes then it is no more ilmenite.
> The other mineral allegedly not revealed by the company is silicon. Silicon
> is the second most abundant elements in the earth’s crust, the first is
> oxygen, unlike ilmenite or gold etc, it is not a mineral (it is an element). One
> of the main sources of silicon is silica (a mineral), which is the main
> constituent of beach sand, meaning, beach sand would normally have a very high
> percentage of silicon.
> The fourth mineral claimed to have not been revealed by the company is
> Uranium. Uranium , like gold, is both an element and a mineral. According to the
> Point Newspaper, the Minister had indicated that a small amount of this
> mineral was also reported to have been present in the samples sent to other
> laboratories. I am therefore not surprised that the company didn’t name it as one of
> the minerals they are looking after, since the concentration might not be ‘
> economically viable’ for mining, hence they might not interested in that
> mineral. Every mineral economist will tell you that the mere presence of a
> mineral at a location is not an issue, the more critical question is always the ‘
> economic viability’ of the concentration of the mineral at any given location.
> Rutile, like ilmenite is another mineral from which Titanium-dioxide can be
> extracted and might also contain some small quantities of iron-oxide. So if
> according to the point newspaper, the company was allowed to export rutile
> then that is a further vindication for exporting titanium. Titanium from rutile
> and ilmenite!
> Unless the facts given in the point and the Daily observer are totally
> wrong, which I assume is not the case, then my humble view is that the minister
> needs to make further consultations and reconsider his decision. I would
> further make the following conclusions/summary:
> 1. if you export ilmenite/rutile you are certainly exporting
> Titanium, since titanium is an intrinsic component of ilmenite.
> 2. if you export ilmenite/rutile you are certainly exporting some
> iron, since ilmenite without iron is no more ilmenite.
> 3. Uranium is a heavy mineral and usually found in environments
> where you find heavy minerals likes ilmenite and rutile. However the important
> consideration for any mineral economist is: ‘whether the amount of the
> mineral is economically viable or not’.
> 5. It is highly unlikely that the three laboratory results will all
> be wrong and even more unlikely that the company is ‘cheating’. From my
> assessment above the two are not mutually exclusive scenarios. I
> therefore strongly believe that there was a simple misinterpretation resulting
> from lack of basic knowledge on the subject matter by the minister.
> I hope I have achieved my objective of trying to explain these some what
> confusing terminologies. Any basic book on mineral economics or any website on
> mineralogy will do better. I also hope that the Minister reconsiders his
> decision.
> Regards,
> Mr. Jammeh.
> **We produce the photo above courtesy of Buwa Mansa.
> posted @ Sunday, February 17, 2008 10:12 PM by egsankara
>
>
>
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> 2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)
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