Investment in the future
El Mutún – one of the world’s largest iron ore deposits
Summary: El Mutn, one of South America’s most significant iron ore and manganese
deposits, is located in south-eastern Bolivia, 27 km from the town of Puerto Suárez.
Empresa Siderrgica del Mutn (ESM), which signed a Joint Venture agreement with
Jindal Steel Bolivia LTD (JSB) on July 18, 2007, is responsible for the recovery of ore on
a 5525 hectare site, some 50 % of the total deposit claim.
According to a geological study performed in 2006 by the Bolivian National Geological and Technical Mining Institute (Sergeotecmin), the reserves in the El Mutn orefield (Figure 1) contain 40.205 billion tonnes of iron-bearing minerals, in the form, principally, of hematite (Fe2O3), magnetite (Fe3O4) and some little siderite (FeCO3), plus ten billion tonnes of manganese (MnO2). The El Mutn field consists of a surface area of around 60 km2 of iron-bearing strata of thicknesses ranging from 100 to 300 metres, interspersed in some cases by manganese-bearing veins of a few centimetres in thickness...
