Iron Ore Resources and Beneficiation Practices

Iron and Steel Industry provides foundation for indust-rial development of a country. The per capita consumption of steel is considered as one of the important parameters of a nation's prosperity. Iron ore is the basic raw mater-ial for iron and steel making. The world reserves of iron ore are estimated to around 370 bill on tonnes. The prin-cipal minerals of iron are the oxides(hematite and magne-tite), hydroxide (limonite and goethite) and carbonate (siderite). In nature the commercial deposits are mostly of bed type, although deposits of magnetic, contact meta-somatic and of a replacement nature also exist. In many cases, ground water circulation and weathering have resul-ted in concentration of the ore from primary sources. The major iron ore producing countries in the world are the Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, USA, Russia,
Kazakhstan, South Africa, Ukraine and Sweden. Pre Cambrian banded iron formations containing 30% or more of iron are the predominant sources of iron.