Navai state mining institute the mining faculty independent work

Many in Guinea hope that the new MetalCorp plant will enable Guineans to better profit from the country’s bauxite reserves.

 

Phosphate rock: 276 million tonnes

The BGS provides unified statistics for all rocks containing the mineral phosphorous, which is predominantly used as a plant fertiliser, as well as to provide sparks in flares and matchboxes. China was by far the largest producer of phosphates, contributing 144 million tonnes, over half of the world’s production, in 2016.

One of the more unusual sources of phosphate is Christmas Island, an Australian overseas territory in the Indian Ocean with a population of 1,800. Phosphate Resources, which has mined phosphate at a single mine on the island for over 100 years, produced 770,000 tonnes of phosphate rock in 2016. However, uncertainty remains over the territory’s future, as the Australian Government has rejected the company’s applications to expand the mine into new areas, arguing that mining operations threaten local red crab populations, which have collapsed from around 100 million to around 40 million in the last decade.