Our latest project centres around the exploration of the greater Aghracha area in southern Morocco for both vanadium and rare earth elements.
Our latest project centres around the exploration of the greater Aghracha area in southern Morocco for both vanadium and rare earth elements. The total licenced area is located in the Sahara region, approximately 140 kilometres southeast of Dakhla. The area has great iron potential (as well as titanium and vanadium), plus is highly advantageous due to its easy access and proximity to basic infrastructures and administrations.
Geological studies of the Aghracha region first commenced in 1952, with a total area of 1800km 2 explored. It proved highly encouraging for iron ore, and a further ground magneto- metric was carried out to confirm these findings. Estimations suggested resources of iron ore of at least 70 million tons in the central part of the Aghracha District.
A drilling program was then performed in order to confirm these results and to assess the ore grades. What is interesting is that the evaluation was only focused on the central part of the district – geologists at the time claimed that the total iron ore resources in the entire Aghracha district would greatly exceed 120 million tons.
Metallurgical tests, including titanium and vanadium recovery tests, came back positive.
Fast forward to 1964, and a techno-economic feasibility study was carried out. A notable outcome of this was that Aghracha has been considered as one of the world’s best deposits for its grade and large tonnage of vanadium metal. The region’s Fe-Ti-V resources were later confirmed in numerous reports, including those carried out by national governments.
In 2017, numerous samples were collected to assess the ore and if it meets the international qualitative standards. These assayed samples were iron rich Fe 2 O 3 (approximately 70%) and enhanced significantly by high grades of titanium oxides TiO 2 above 16%.
Due to the iron ore being strongly magnetic, the Aghracha area can be surveyed easily and effectively by ground geophysical and magnetometry methods.
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