The Iron Ore Debate
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lquife Mines Holdings is a Dutch company with a long history of mining operations in this region and Granada province. This company used the discharge facility at the Almería port for loading iron ore onto waiting cargo ships, using the famous “Cable Inglés” structure, an enormous cast iron construction, actually cast in Scotland. Exhaustive surveys at the abandoned mines in Marquesado del Zenet just over the border into Granada province has shown that an extraction of further iron ore is both practical and desirable. Relatively high prices for the sale of iron ore has resulted in the opinion that there are at least 90 million tonnes of iron ore waiting to be mined, and at an estimated production of 4 million tonnes per year this gives a minimum life of 22-23 years. Holger Denicke from the Spanish arm of the company ‘Minas de Alquife S.L.’ thinks that the potential extraction may be much more than at present anticipated. Prices in 1996 of 12 dollars per ton have now risen to 100 dollars per ton. It appears a very viable operation which the company hopes to restart in 2013. One of the main considerations is how to get the iron ore to Almería port. Part of the eventual arrival of the AVE (Spanish High Speed Train), now unlikely to arrive in Almería until at least 2019, is The mines at Marquesado
that an underground line would link up with the port from the main station. ‘Alquife’ have indicated that they would be prepared to liase with Almería and national officials, and perhaps fund part of an underground link to the port, as an addition to the 250 million euro investment required to open and exploit the mines. Independent evaluation of the most cost effective route is that the Almería port is the most viable. But Almería port has been converted and modernized to deal mainly in “clean” traffic such as containers and bulk marble and stone carrying, with the ‘yeso’ (plaster), gravel and non-solid trade being switched to the Carboneras port. There is a famous disused mineral storage building at Almería station known as the “Toblerone” building because it looks just like the confectionary, that is shortly going to be demolished to make way for tower blocks with 1,300 homes. ‘Alquife’ then said that they would build a modern version where the iron ore trains would discharge into hoppers, then into the waiting freight carrying ships via closed conveyer belts, all under cover. Almería council is now thinking that they don’t want iron ore carried to their port on a railway, or even want the iron ore at all. They say that the ‘Alquife’ offer to fund some of the cost of a tunnel access is praiseworthy but the Department of Transport and ‘Adif’, the rail authority, have no plans for a tunnel access until at least 2020 or 2022. Also, if they allow surface trains this may make the tunnel plan at the other end of Almería city more unlikely. Carboneras says it would love to have the iron ore there, and suggests a rail link from Carboneras from Venta del Pobre that would link in with the Almerá Murcia AVE line. The Almería Port Authority also administers the Carboneras port. A previous idea to transport the iron ore to Carboneras by lorry traffic has been thrown out as each of thefreight trucks in the 70 trains per week can carry 50 tonnes. The debate is getting lively, but there does appear to be gold (actually iron ore) in them thar hills!
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