Egypt’s Mineral Wealth: Gold, Copper, Silver, Zinc, Platinum, and More

Egypt has a lot Mineral wealthsome of which are exploited and others are on the way to exploitation given the investment climate at the present time, and these resources vary in terms of type, quantity and places of distribution.

Mineral resources in Egypt

Egypt is home to a wealth of mineral resources including gold, copper, silver, zinc, platinum, and a number of other precious and basic metals. All of these resources lie under the eastern desert of Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula.

The Egyptian soil and lands are among the richest lands with important minerals and of high value, not only in gold, but Egypt contains more than 27 minerals in its lands.

President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi always emphasizes the good management and exploitation of mineral wealth in Egypt, within the framework of the state’s firm strategy to benefit from the natural raw materials available in Egypt, and to contribute to maximizing their added value for the benefit of the national economy and national income, as well as providing the necessary needs for products and primary raw materials at the local level. Which reduces the import bill and saves hard currency.

Today, President El-Sisi met with Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, Prime Minister, Eng. Tarek El-Molla, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Eng. Mahmoud Esmat, Minister of Public Business Sector, Major General Staff Walid Abul-Magd, Director General of the National Service Projects Agency of the Armed Forces, and Major General Staff Abdel Salam Shafiq, President of the Egyptian Company. For mining, management and exploitation of quarries and salines.

Counselor Ahmed Fahmy, the spokesperson for the Presidency of the Republic, stated that the meeting dealt with presenting the ongoing efforts to develop and develop Egypt’s benefit from mineral resources, especially from tantalum ore, of which there are reserves in Egypt, and it is considered one of the precious and rare elements that are used in many advanced industries, such as Aircraft components, electronic and electrical circuits, phones and laptops, as well as manufacturing some medical components such as prosthetic slides and artificial joints.

The spokesperson added that President El-Sisi directed the continuation of work to optimally manage and exploit the mineral wealth and raw materials available in Egypt, stressing the adoption of the best methods of modern management and governance, and advanced technological technologies, in a way that maximizes the added value of Egypt’s mineral wealth. It contributes to strengthening the industrial plan of the state and the national economy.

Tantalum reserves in Egypt are estimated at 40 million tons in the Abu Dabab area in Sinai, and 98 million tons in the Nuweiba mountains.

Tantalum is a naturally occurring element primarily in tantalite minerals [(الحديد، Mn) Ta2O6]There are other minerals such as Samarskite and Fergusonite, but in a less intense form than tantalite, and the mineral tantalite is found mixed with columbite in coltan-6 ore.

What is tantalum metal?

The tantalum mine in the Abu Dabab region is considered the third in the world in terms of reserves, and these are its most prominent uses:

• 50% of tantalum production is used in the manufacture of 25% of jet aircraft components
• Revitalizing and promoting the manufacture of electronic and microelectronic circuits, mobile devices and laptops.
• Manufacture of prosthetic slides that are installed in human bones due to its lack of interaction with the body.
• It is used in precision medical components and advanced industrial joints.
• It is used in the manufacture of drilling blades and granite cutting devices.

Egypt is distinguished by the presence of many ores with large reserves that are located in suitable places and locations. The extraction operations do not require an existing complex technology. Rather, they are extracted using the open-pit mining method, which is low in cost. It is easy to process and manufacture any number of products, each of which has its own industrial uses at the local and global levels.

Egypt contains many minerals in its lands, as the Egyptian desert, both eastern and western, contains about 31 types of minerals and ores of high quality, part of which is precious metals, such as gold, silver and platinum, and another is related to high-value minerals for the energy sector.

It also contains black sands that contain a high percentage of uranium, and the Sinai Peninsula contains promising areas, and a lot of manganese and phosphates, and there are large quantities of iron ore in the Maghara region in Aswan, and gold ore in the eastern desert and the Red Sea governorate.

According to a study conducted by the geologist, Dr. Atef Thabet, in 1980 on the proven reserves and the quality of the discovered and available ores that can be exploited and include “niobium – tantalum – albite white feldspar – quartz – tin”, the ore Albite represents about 89.6% of the total rocks in the region, which are estimated at thousands of tons and represent a real wealth for Egypt.

In the study, he pointed out that the area of ​​the region is estimated at one square kilometer, and the height of the mountain is 130 meters from the valley level, and the depth is 300 meters, and the confirmed reserves of tantalum ore reach 13,243 thousand tons.

He pointed out that the confirmed reserves of niobium ore are estimated at 5,528 thousand tons, 5,232 thousand tons of tin ore, and nearly 80 million tons of albite ore.

For his part, antiquities expert Dr. Abd al-Rahim Rihan, Director General of Archaeological Research and Studies and Scientific Publishing in the South Sinai Antiquities Areas, said that Egypt already possesses the treasures of the earth as mentioned in the Holy Qur’an, according to what the Almighty said in Surat Yusuf verse (55) “He said, set me over the treasures of the earth.” This confirms the presence of land treasuries in Egypt, including precious metals, oil, energy and groundwater, which were coveted by invaders throughout all ages.

He explained that the climate in which Egypt is currently experiencing a comprehensive reconstruction that ended the eras of painkillers, which is the first tidings, as the state has already tended to search for, revive and discover all the cultural and spiritual riches in it, and this cultural richness includes with it great material wealth; Because the spiritual richness in Egypt was a source for searching for and discovering all its riches.

Egypt’s natural capabilities

The Egyptian desert, both eastern and western, contains about 31 types of minerals and ores of high quality, part of which is precious metals, such as gold, silver and platinum, and another is related to high-value minerals for the energy sector, as well as black sand that contains a high percentage of uranium.

The Sinai Peninsula also contains promising areas, and a lot of manganese and phosphates. Large quantities of iron ore are found in the Maghara region in Aswan, and gold ore is found in the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea Governorate.

In the following lines, “Sada El-Balad” reviews the most prominent and important mineral resources located in the Egyptian lands, including:

Iron, which is one of the most important mineral resources that Egypt is famous for, and its deposits are located in 3 main regions, which are east of Aswan, the Bahariya Oasis and the Eastern Desert. Confirmed reserves, while reserves in Bahariya Oasis recorded 330 million tons of confirmed reserves, and in the eastern Aswan region, reserves amounted to 75 million tons of confirmed reserves.

Black sands, which are found along the northern coast east of Alexandria to Al-Arish, and the reserves are about 7 million tons.

There is also manganese, whose deposits are found in the Abu Zenima region in the Sinai Peninsula, but the reserves in this region are relatively small, and are initially estimated at about 40,000 tons. As for the Halayeb region, southeast of the eastern desert near the Red Sea coast, manganese deposits are available in the form of lenses. And slanted pockets of cracks The reserve is estimated at about 120 thousand tons, and it is usually used in the steel industry, dry batteries, paint and chemical industries.

Chromium ore, which is found in Bramiya, Ras Shaith, Abu Dahr, Wadi al-Ghadeer, Jabal al-Jurf, and Umm Kabu, and is used in the manufacture of strong steel and heat-resistant alloys, jet engines, gas turbines, leather tanning and dyes, thermal and photography industries, but its reserves are uncertain Where it ranges between (2000 – 5000 tons).

Ores are found in some areas, such as the Umm Dughij area on the Red Sea coast, and the estimated reserves are about 1.6 million tons, of which one million tons are confirmed ores, with 14% zinc and 2% lead.

Phosphate, which is one of the most important raw materials for the chemical and fertilizer industries, and is found in the form of a belt of phosphate deposits that extends to a distance of about 750 km from the Red Sea coast in the east to the Dakhla oases in the west. Egypt’s reserves of phosphate ore reach 8 billion tons, and the main sites for its presence are in The Nile Valley between Edfu and Qena and on the Red Sea coast between the port of Safaga and Al-Qusayr and the Abu Tartour plateau, and it contains the largest deposit of phosphates in Egypt. The reserves are estimated at about 1000 million tons.