MOVING A MOUNTAIN OF IRON ORE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29010, 26 September 1959, Page 10

MOVING A MOUNTAIN OF IRON ORE

Vast Project In North Liberia [By HORACE CASTELL, Reuter Correspondent] SANNIQUELLIE (Liberia). Plans are already well advanced for carrying off an entire mountain to the iron smelters of the world. The mountain, Nimba, is the most massive of the Nimba range, which towers over the North-eastern tip of Liberia, along the borders of this country with the Republic of Guinea and the French Ivory Coast.

Geologists have so far proved that there are at least 250,000,000 tons of 66.5 per cent iron ore in Nimba peak. (The maximum percentage of iron ore found anywhere in the world is 70, and 35 per cent, iron ore is still worth mining). Adjoining peaks probably have another 250,000,000 tons, while other Nimba peaks in Guinea and the Ivory Coast also seem to abound in iron ore. These figures, according to the geologists, make the Nimba range one of the world’s biggest iron ore deposits—and a potential multi-million dollar business. The Nimba range is an isolated, sparsely-populated forest area, but today there is already a large mining camp with an air strip set at an altitude of 700 metres (2300 feet) up the 1800 metre (5905 foot) high Nimba peak. The corrugated-iron shacks of surveyors and geologists can be seen all over the slopes of Nimba and some of its sister peaks in Liberian territory. More surveyors are scattered along the 187-mile projected railway line to the coast, and thousands of workers are reclaiming the crocodile-infested swamps at Buchanan, 35 miles east of Monrovia, the Liberian capital, to build a new port for freighters of up to 45,000 tons. In three years, it is hoped that some 6,000,000 tons of iron ore will be mined in., the Nimba range, brought to the coast on the new railway and shipped out from the new port. But before all that can happen, the company which owns the Nimba mining concession, the Liberian American Minerals Co., has to find the 200,000,000 dollars (about £70,000,000) which the project is expected to cost. Company officials say that financial negotiations have reached a promising stage. Bethlehem Steel, the big American company, has promised to contribute an undisclosed percentage of the whole cost in return for 25 per

cent, of the profits. The rest is expected to be contributed by a combine of Swedish and American firms .and bankers. It is understood that application has also been made for a loan from the Import Export Bank. Of the other 75 per cent, of the profits, 50 per cent, will go to the Liberian Government in return for the concession granted to the Company. The rest will be shared by the SWedishAmerican combine. According to geologists, the profits, once production gets under way, are likely to be high. They are convinced that there are thousands of millions of dollars’ worth of iron ore in the Nimba range. Discovery In 1955 The Nimba deposits were first discovered on December 23, 1955, by a Scottish geologist, Alexander Clark, who still lives in a shack in the geologists’ camp on Nimba mountain. When “Sandy” Clark found the deposits, he is said excitedly to have cabled his employers: “I have not found a mine, I have found a landscape of iron ore.” In due course, that landscape will change—as the iron ore is gradually chopped off and the mountain is literally carried away.

The company hopes that production may start early in 1963. In the meantime, it has already spent about 15.000,000 dollars (just under £5,000,000) on initial surveying and building the base camps. About 100 Europeans (Swedes, Americans, Italians and Swiss) and about 1500 Liberians are at present working at Greenfields, the headquarters of the mining company 20 miles up the

slopes of the Nimba mountain, from Sannequellie, the nearest village. At the headquarters camp, you walk on iron ore—as a letter addressed, to all visitors informs you when you arrive. All round stands thick forest, teeming with insect life but free of wild animals. What the miners fear most are the driving ants (large, black ants) which move about in thousands of millions and are capable of devouring an unconscious man, for instance, in two hours. “When the driving ants

move in to our camps,” a veteran miner told me, “we move out. There is nothing we can do about them. They stay for two or three days, then leave, and we regain possession of our huts.”

The only communication between Greenfieds, or Sannequellie, for that matter, and Monrovia is through the company’s private radio station. This is also used by the company’s Swiss doctor to give remote control treatment to patients scattered over hundreds of miles of forest country.

Company officials are* reluctant to forecast what Nimba’s iron ore wealth will evntually mean to Liberia in annual income. But it is unofficially estimated that, in the early stages of production, the Liberian Government will get between 10,000,000 dollars and 15,000,000 dollars (between £3,500,000 and just under £5,000,000 sterling) a year as its share of the profits. To a country with a population of about 1,000,000 people, this could be a useful sum, and in the long run, Nimba added to Liberia’s extensive rubber plantations could make this country, in proportion to its population, one of the richest in West Africa.