On Tuesday 8 January Arcelor Mittal announced plans to massively expand iron ore mining in Mauritania to feed its European steel plants. Arcelor Mittal said it wants to more than double Societe Nationale Industrielle et Miniere's (SNIM) current output by extracting 25 million tons of iron ore a year at Ei Agar-eb, which contains more than 1 billion tons of rich grade of magnetite. State-owned SNIM is said to be one of Africa's oldest iron ore mining companies with world-class facilities and infrastructure, and producing more than 12 million tons of iron ore per year. However, the creation of such a big mine would be subject to a feasibility study. Arcelor Mittal says it is one of the oldest consumers of SNIM's iron ore, having been a customer for more than two decades.
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