In northern Guinea, attention has been drawn to the Simandou North project spearheaded by Australian firm Arrow Minerals in recent months. Despite being in its early exploration phase, initial drilling outcomes have sparked optimism.
Arrow Minerals has unveiled promising discoveries from its iron ore venture situated north of the well-known Simandou deposit’s four blocks. Drilling samples have revealed high-grade iron mineralization, reaching levels of up to 63%.
CEO David Flanagan remarked, “We’ve had an encouraging start to our drilling program, especially considering it marks the inception of the first systematic drilling campaign on the project. We’re still in the process of establishing fundamental geological parameters such as the mineralization’s orientation.”
In addition to the noteworthy grades discovered, the company has received encouraging results from metallurgical tests conducted on “canga” drilling targets—a type of surface-level iron ore that is easily exploitable. These findings suggest that the iron ore grade could be augmented by approximately 4% through straightforward dry crushing and screening techniques.
While it remains early in the exploration journey, Arrow Minerals is contemplating exploiting these resources for direct shipment to the market (DSO), bypassing the need for intricate or costly processing. This is due to the extracted ore possessing a sufficiently high iron grade to be directly sold to steel mills. However, further drilling and analysis are requisite to validate these prospects.
Situated north of the globally renowned Guinean iron ore deposit Simandou, the Simandou North project could potentially utilize the railway and port infrastructure currently under construction as part of the Simandou deposit development. The Guinean government anticipates commencing exports from the Simandou deposit in 2025 as construction progresses, with these infrastructures potentially benefiting the Simandou North project if a viable deposit is uncovered.
