CAIRO – 26 August 2021: Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) published a new video graph highlighting that Egypt possesses 11 sites of black sand and heavy metals.
The video graph explained that minerals are separated and extracted from black sands at the sites.
The extracted minerals then are used in strategic products and important industries such as: the manufacture of aircraft and automobile structures, petroleum pipelines, nuclear radiation materials, and others; Which makes it a national treasure for the country to be reckoned with.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco and Oman are the richest countries with black sand reserves.
In Egypt, that black sand comes from the Nile River, and accumulates on beaches in the form of sediments or sand dunes as a result of the collision of the Nile water with the Mediterranean waters.
It spreads along the coast in the east, starting from the city of Rashid to Rafah, with a length of 400 km.
Egypt has 11 sites with black sands having eight types of heavy minerals, with geological reserve reaches 1.3 billion cubic meters. The reserve size is 288.5 million tons around Lake Burullus, and the mineral reserve is 1.1 billion cubic meters, with an average concentration of heavy metals 3 percent, so it is considered the largest reserve of black sand in the world.
An Australian study estimated that the economic return from one of the 11 sites will bring Egypt more than 255 million pounds annually, which is 46.5 million dollars.
In 2016, Egypt established the Egyptian Black Sand Company, and in 2018, the foundation stone for a black sand separation plant in Borollos was laid on an area of 80 acres in Kafr El-Sheikh, with investments exceeding one billion pounds.
Currently, the state is reviving the black sand project with the participation of the National Service Projects Organization of the Armed Forces, the Nuclear Materials Authority and the National Investment Bank, in addition to two factories, one of them is an Australian-Egyptian in East Burullus and the other is Chinese in the north of Burullus.
The high-tech Dutch ‘Long Live Egypt’ dredger is being transferred from Burullus Bogas to the Black Sand Factory to start the actual work on the project.
More about Black Sand
In January 2019, the Parliament approved a draft law authorizing cooperation between the Electricity Ministry and specialized local bodies to benefit from Egypt's black sand and extract a number of economic minerals, considering it a real investment in renewable energy.
The first phase of the separation and extraction of minerals from black sand in Rashid (Rosetta), a port city of the Nile Deltalocated 65 km east of Alexandria, in Beheira governorate.
The Rashid Beach area is the second region where the extraction process occurs after the coast of Baltim in Kafr el-Sheikh.
Black sand is found in many areas in Egypt, such as the coastal plain on both sides of Rashid and Damietta sub-districts, east of Bugaz, Borouloslake, and the coastal plain extending from the east of Lake Bardawil to the city of al-Arish in northern Sinai.
Furthermore, black sand is of great economic importance because it contains a large percentage of metals that can provide Egypt with an economic return of millions of dollars annually.
Black sand is heavy black sediment that accumulates on some beaches near the estuaries of the great rivers. It is named so because of its dark color. It contains many heavy metals such as iron. It also contains a small percentage of radioactive metals, and contains a high proportion of titanium, which is involved in the manufacture of missile structures and high-altitude aircraft.
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