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 
>
>
>
> **************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.      
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> 2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)
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