Finally, Libya is back inot iron ore production. The country has decided to resume iron ore production in 2010, after the political situation stabilizes. It is expected that the iron ore restart will prompt the development of other industries.

The tax income from the 2 big domestic mines is expected to reach $260 million and accounting for around 17% of GDP.

According to IMF, Libya’s economy is estimated to experience growth of
7.5%, mainly relying on the restarting of iron ore projects and
maintaining a stable economic situation.

Libyan industrial development has been heavily dependent on the oil sector and iron ore.

Political events of the 1980s convinced many American-owned companies
of the advisability of selling off their Libyan operations. In 1981
Exxon withdrew from Libya, pulling out its long-standing subsidiary
operations. Mobil followed suit in 1982, when it withdrew from its
operations in the Ras al Unuf system. These withdrawals gave NOC an
even greater share in the overall oil industry. Another round of
advancing nationalization was made possible in 1986, when United States
President Ronald Reagan announced on January 7 his intention to require
American companies to divest from their operations in Libya.

Libya’s commercially usable mineral resources, apart from its
hydrocarbons, were limited to a large iron-ore deposit in the Wadi ash
Shati near Sabha in Fezzan, and scattered, deposits of gypsum,
limestone, cement rock, salt, and building stone.

There also were small, widely scattered and currently noncommercial
deposits of phosphate rock, manganese, barite-celestite, sodium
carbonate, sulfur, and alum.

The Wadi ash Shati iron-ore deposit is apparently one of the largest in
the world. Suitable in considerable part for strip mining, it outcrops
in or underlies roughly eighty square kilometers of the valley.

Other scattered iron ore deposits in northwestern Tripolitania and
northern Fezzan were apparently insufficient to be commercially
exploitable under current conditions. Manganese was known to occur in
northwestern Tripolitania and, in combination with the iron-ore
deposits, at several locations in the Wadi ash Shati. Known deposits,
however, were not considered commercially exploitable.

Because of the government’s interest in social welfare and its
financial ability to support it, construction is bound to be a major
area of future economic development.

Source: Commodity Online

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