Delegates at the Middle East Mining (Manajim)
Conference 2015 in London heard how countries like Iraq are
trying to diversify their economies away from oil and gas and
focus more on developing their industrial minerals
sectors.
Iraq hosts a wide range of mineral deposits
dispersed throughout the country and can provide opportunities
for foreign investment, according to Government of
Iraq’s former first deputy president of
parliament, Dr Qusay Al Suhail.
Speaking at the Manajim Conference at the end of
April, Al Suhail said Iraq had more than 900m tonnes of
sulphur. It also has silica sand, phosphorous, bentonite,
feldspar, kaolin, gypsum and flint clay.
Dr Saad Jasim, consultant to Heritage Oil and
author of The Geology of Iraq, added that western Iraq
had large deposits of low-grade iron and bauxite as well as
zircon and ilmenite concentrations in black sand.
He explained that the political situation in
Kurdistan, an autonomous geo-cultural region spanning northern
Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran, is favourable for exploration at
the moment.
However, Al Suhail said that the central
government controls investment in industrial minerals, which
can stunt the sector’s development. He said: "The
main problem of Iraq is that we have one law controlling
investment, which was issued in 1988. This law shows that the
investment in such materials is [handled] separately under the
central government."
Nevertheless, he said that the Iraq government
was currently drafting a new mineral investment law. He said
the main purpose of the law was to establish a "mineral
council" similar to its "oil council", which will help with the
planning of mineral resource investment, as well as "giving
licences to companies who would like to come to Iraq".
With oil and gas prices becoming increasingly
volatile, Middle East countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman and
Iraq are trying to diversify their economies away from those
markets.
Civil unrest
Speakers giving presentations at the Manajim
Conference did not mention how the recent Iraq war (2003-2011)
has affected mining development in the country, or how Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the extreme jihadi rebel
group, was deterring investment.
Last year, IM reported that ISIL
was disrupting operations by taking control of a phosphate-rich
area called Akashat. Located in the western region of Iraq,
close to the Syrian border, Akashat has been mined for
phosphate since 1982 and contains reserves of 430m tonnes.
According to the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights,
ISIL had been transferring raw material of phosphate to Raqqa
in Syria.
The deposit is the main source of phosphate
fertiliser in Iraq, and Saudi Arabian news source Al Arabiya
speculated that the material could be used in the production of
explosives.