Although the subsoil of Ivory Coast contained many other minerals, none existed in commercially exploitable amounts, given the high costs of extraction. The mining sector contributes to 13% of exports (in 2022).>https://oec.world/en/profile/country/civ
''Cote d'Ivoire country study''

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

Federal Research Division The Federal Research Division (FRD) is the research and analysis unit of the United States Library of Congress. The Federal Research Division provides directed research and analysis on domestic and international subjects to agencies of the Unit ...

(November 1988). ''This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

''. During the precolonial era, gold was extracted from small shafts dug into the earth or from river and streambeds and was traded at the coast or across the

Sahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

. Efforts under the colonial administration to exploit gold deposits at Kokoumbo in the center of the country and at small mines in the southeast proved unprofitable. In 1984 the state-owned SODEMI and a French mining company formed the Ity Mining Company (Société Minières d'Ity—SMI) to exploit a deposit discovered thirty years earlier at Ity near

Danané Danané is a city in the far west of Ivory Coast. It is a sub-prefecture of and the seat of Danané Department in Tonkpi Region, Montagnes District. Danané is also a commune. The city is 25 kilometres east of the border with Liberia, 30 kil ...

. Total investment in this period was estimated at CFA F1.2 billion. The gold ore was of medium quality, with a ratio of gold to ore in the range of 8.5 grams per ton. Extraction was to begin in 1987, with output anticipated at 700 kilograms of gold metal during the first two years of operation. Ity estimated an additional investment of CFA F2.3 billion to expand output to 700 kilograms of gold metal a year. SODEMI also located gold deposits in the region of Issia and in the Lobo River bed, with anticipated annual yields of 100 kilograms and 25 kilograms, respectively. In the mid-1970s, low-grade deposits (less than 50 percent) of iron ore estimated at 585 million tons were assayed at Bangolo near the Liberian border. A consortium representing Japanese, French, British, American, Dutch, and Ivoirian interests was formed to exploit the deposits; however, depressed world prices for iron ore forced the participants to postpone the project indefinitely. Following World War II,

diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...

mining seemed promising, but by the mid-1980s expectations had waned. The Tortiya diamond mine, operating since 1948, peaked in 1972 when were mined. In 1980, however, the mine was closed. The Bobi mine near Séguéla produced per year until the late 1970s; it was closed in 1979. Remaining reserves for Tortiya were estimated at ; for Bobi, . Between 1960 and 1966, manganese mines in the region of Grand-Lahou on the coast yielded 180,000 tons of ore per year. In 1970, after world market prices had dropped and production costs had risen, the mines were closed. There were additional unexploited

manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

deposits near Odienné. Ivory Coast also had small deposits of colombo-tantalite,

ilmenite Ilmenite is a titanium-iron oxide mineral with the idealized formula . It is a weakly magnetic black or steel-gray solid. Ilmenite is the most important ore of titanium and the main source of titanium dioxide, which is used in paints, printing ...

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

, and

bauxite Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO ...

References

External links

La Mancha - Ity Mine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mining Industry Of Cote D'ivoire Mining in Ivory Coast Economy of Ivory Coast Ivory Coast