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Sudan
MINING
In 1990 the mining industry accounted for less than 1 percent
of the total GDP. A wide range of minerals existed in Sudan, but
the size of reserves had not been determined in most cases. The
discovery of commercially exploitable quantities of petroleum
in the late 1970s offered some hope that the sector would play
an increased role in the economy in the future (see Petroleum
Use and Domestic Resources , this ch.). However, from February
1984, some months after concessions were allotted, oil exploration
operations had been suspended in the south, where the largest
deposits were located, as a result of the region's security problems.
Nonhydrocarbon minerals of actual or potential commercial value
included gold, chrome, copper, iron, manganese, asbestos, gypsum,
mica, limestone, marble, and uranium. Gold had been mined in the
Red Sea Hills since pharaonic times. Between 1900 and 1954, several
British enterprises worked gold mines in the area, and extracted
a considerable quantity of the metal--one mine alone reportedly
produced three tons of gold between 1924 and 1936. Gold also has
been mined along the borders between Sudan and Uganda and Zaire,
but not in commercially profitable amounts. During the 1970s,
the government's Geological Survey Administration located more
than fifty potential gold-producing sites in different parts of
the country. Several joint ventures between the Sudanese Mining
Corporation, a government enterprise, and foreign companies were
launched in the 1980s; these undertakings produced gold at Gebeit
and several other mines near the Red Sea Hills beginning in 1987.
In 1988, about 78,000 metric kilograms of gold ore were mined
in Sudan. In late 1990, Sudan and two French mining companies
formed a joint venture company to exploit gold reserves in the
Khawr Ariab wadi in the Red Sea Hills.
Chrome ore was mined in the Ingessana Hills in Al Awsat. In the
late 1970s, output was reportedly more than 20,000 tons a year,
of which more than four-fifths were produced by the Ingessana
Hills Mines Corporation, a subsidiary of Sudanese Mining Corporation.
A private operation produced the remainder. The ore was exported,
chiefly to Japan and Western Europe. In the 1980s, the establishment
of ferrochrome processing facilities had been discussed with Japanese
interests, but the estimated 700,000 tons of reserves were insufficient
for profitable longterm operations. By 1983, when the civil war
brought a halt to all production in the Ingessana Hills, chrome
production had declined about 50 percent to only 10,000 tons per
year. In 1988, production of chromium ore was estimated at 5,000
metric tons. Asbestos had also been found in the Ingessana Hills
area. It was reportedly of good commercial grade, and mining possibilities
were under study by a Canadian subsidiary of the United States
firm of Johns-Manville. A small pilot extraction plant had been
built, but larger scale operations were dependent on locating
adequate reserves and on the ending of the civil war.
Large gypsum deposits, estimated to contain reserves of 220 million
tons, were found along the Red Sea coast. Reportedly of high purity,
the ore was mined mainly north of Port Sudan. In the late 1980s,
about 20,000 tons were produced annually, about 6,000 tons by
the Sudanese Mining Corporation and the remainder by private operations.
Gypsum was used mostly in the production of cement. Limestone,
found in substantial quantities in Sudan, was mined both for use
in making cement and for other construction materials. Marble
was also quarried for the latter purpose.
There has been some commercial mining of mica, exploitable deposits
of which had been located in Ash Shamali Province by a UN mineral
survey team between 1968 and 1972. The Sudanese Mining Corporation
produced about 1,000 tons of scrap mica in FY 1978, but output
reportedly slumped thereafter to about 400 tons annually. Manganese
and iron ore, of which several large deposits exist in different
parts of the country, have been mined at times but only on a small
basis by international standards. There were more than 500 million
tons of iron ore deposits in the Fodikwan area of the Red Sea
Hills, and beginning in the late 1980s a project had been planned
to produce between 120,000 and 200,000 tons a month. Exploitation
of Sudan's mineral deposits, however, depended in large part on
foreign companies willing to undertake such risks in the face
of the country's mounting problems, and on international market
factors.
Uranium ores have been discovered in the area of the Nuba Mountains
and at Hufrat an Nahas in southern Kurdufan. Minex Company of
the United States obtained a 36,000-square-kilometer exploratory
concession in the Kurdufan area in 1977, and the concession was
increased to 48,000 square kilometers in 1979. Uranium reserves
are also believed to exist near the western borders with Chad
and Central African Republic. Another potential source of mineral
wealth was the Red Sea bed. In 1974 officials established a joint
Sudanese-Saudi Arabian agency to develop those resources, which
included zinc, silver, copper, and other minerals. Explorations
below the 2,000-meter mark have indicated that large quantities
of the minerals are present, but as of 1990 no actual extraction
had been undertaken.
Data as of June 1991
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