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 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 with a distinct 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.