Overview

Mine Type	Open Pit
Stage	Permitting
Commodities	Iron Ore
Mining Method	Truck & Shovel / Loader
Mine Life	...
Snapshot	The Nimba Iron Ore Project (Tier 1 deposit) is located in the Guinean Nimba Mountains. It involves mining high-grade haematite from two open pits. The ore is extremely high-grade and friable with almost no impurities (silica, phosphorus, aluminium oxides), little to no overburden covering the ore, and minimal waste-rock throughout the life of the mine. No tailings dam is required. On May 2024, High Power Exploration confirmed that it has received key approvals from the Republic of Guinea’s Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development for the Terms of Reference and the Scoping documents for the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment process for the Phase 1 development. High Power Exploration is currently finalising its development plans and timeline for the Nimba project to make its Final Investment Decision in Q1, 2025. Preparations for construction continue at Nimba project.

Deposit type

• Banded iron formation

Summary:

The Nimba and Simandou greenstone belts are significant structures within the Archaean basement in the Guinea-Liberia border area (Thiéblemont et al., 2004). The Nimba greenstone belt is a 1400 m-thick sequence of metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks which extends for a total length of 45 km, with 25 km in Liberia and the remainder to the northeast along the border zone of Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire (Berge, 1974). Dating of detrital zircons in quartzite has placed the Nimba greenstone belt as latest Archaean to early Palaeoproterozoic (Billa et al., 1999), the same age as the Simandou belt in Guinea.

Historically iron ore has been exploited from both the Liberian and the Guinean sectors of the Nimba greenstone belt. In Liberia, the main Nimba ore body, now mined out, was located in one of two parallel bands of Archaean BIF with a north-east strike (Berge et al., 1977). The rocks in the Nimba belt are divided into two major units, the Yekepa Supergroup, comprising gneisses and orthoamphibolites with a dominant north–south structural trend, and the younger Nimba Supergroup, which consists of a basal conglomerate overlain by amphibole schists of volcanic origin, succeeded by metasedimentary formations comprising phyllites, the Nimba itabirite and the iron ores (Berge, 1974). The contact between the Nimba Supergroup and the underlying Yekepa Supergroup was interpreted as a regional unconformity, similar to that observed in the Simandou area of Guinea, located about 100 km to the north (Berge, 1972).

Before mining the ore body was 250–300 m thick, 800 m long and known to a depth of 670 m. The ore was formed as a result of alteration of the enclosing grey itabirite during metamorphism, although the role of post-metamorphic meteoric fluids is unclear.

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Production

Personnel

Job Title	Name	Profile	Ref. Date
.......................	.......................		Nov 14, 2024
.......................	.......................		Nov 14, 2024

Total Workforce	Year
......	2021