An Evaluation of Alternative Iron Ore Resources for Rwanda's Proposed Iron and Steel Industry

The mining industry in Rwanda has historically focused on the extraction of Tin, Tungsten, and Tantalite ore deposits, with iron ores being taken as waste due to its low market value. Rwandan industry, however, uses Iron in quantities larger than all other metallic elements combined, which results in significant quantities of Iron being imported to Rwanda, despite Rwanda having Iron deposits found in laterite soils, goethite and hematite. This study sets out to determine if the new Iron industry in Rwanda can be supported exclusively by Rwandan Iron and quantify how much Iron should need to be imported to make up any deficit. We analyzed the Iron content of 9 samples from the tailings of three different mine sites across Rwanda using ICP-Mass spectrometer and ASM (Accelerator mass spectrometer). Our results indicate that on average the tailings contains an average wastes for three mine sites of 35%, extracted Iron deposits in Rwanda can 45% and imported Iron 10% which is sufficient for new iron industry in Rwanda.