BUSINESS ABROAD: Gold from Sand

“Sahara mineral resources will be a direct and decisive factor in our attempts to raise living standards in the French Union.” So said French Premier Maurice Bourges-Maunoury as he appointed the first Minister of the Sahara, Socialist Max Lejeune. The appointment gave a new fillip to excited talk in bars and bourses, where businessmen bubbled with highflying schemes for converting France’s colonial wasteland into a new Ruhr and inexhaustible source of raw materials.

By camel, jeep and helicopter, thousands of French geologists have long been prospecting the Sahara’s vast lunar landscapes, some 1,000 miles from north to south and 3,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Sudan. Last week the government totted up what they found.

¶ Copper-ore deposits of 25 million tons were discovered 100 miles from the Atlantic Coast at Akjoujt. France figures that she can yearly produce 60,000 tons of 25% copper concentrate, ship it to port on new 40-ton, 26-wheel desert trucks which French industry is turning out at the rate of 15 a month.

¶ Manganese-ore deposits of 1,000,000 tons with 45% metal content were found at Djebel Guettara, south of Morocco. France calculates that with an investment of only $2,000,000, she could economically mine 50,000 tons a year.

¶ Coal fields of 100 million tons were found far inland near Colomb-Béchar, are already producing 350,000 tons a year.

¶ Iron-ore deposits of 2.5 billion tons, found south and west of Morocco near Tindouf and Fort Gouraud, could produce 15 million tons of high-grade (53% to 65% iron-content) ore a year.

The immensity of this wealth is overshadowed only by the difficulty of tapping it. To bring the iron ore to port, France would have to spend $435 million to build 780 miles of desert railroad, a new Atlantic harbor. The coal transportation problem is equally big.

In the forbidding Ahaggar mountains in the central Sahara, prospectors have found samples of gold, platinum, nickel, tin, chromium, asbestos, tungsten, uranium, copper, and one small diamond. But the area is separated from the nearest port by 1,400 miles of sand-swept desert trails. Admitted the French government’s mining boss in Algeria, Turquet de Beauregard: “Even if we discovered a mountain of pure iron down there, it would not pay to ship it. So we have to look for very precious ores, such as platinum and uranium, which would be worth sending by plane.”

Prospects are far brighter for oil. Buried under the desert, in three areas 280 miles to 800 miles south of Algiers, are proved reserves of 3.5 billion bbl. and possible reserves of 7 billion bbl. Eight wells are already operating, and a new one was brought in a fortnight ago. Some of the crude is pure enough to power a diesel engine without being refined. A huge natural gas field also was struck 700 miles due south of Algiers.

Last week the government said that “several of the most prominent U.S. oil companies are negotiating with the French for Sahara concessions.” Texas Independent N. Bunker Hunt, son of H. L. Hunt, and Houston’s Texas Gulf Producing Co. are dickering for a piece of the desert. Cities Service Co. and Standard Oil Co. (N.J.) say they are “interested” in making a Sahara oil deal. The five-year leases that French oil companies took in 1952 will expire this September, and some 27 million acres of potential oil lands that these companies did not exploit will be up for lease. U.S. oilmen guess that the French will sell about a 45% interest to U.S. companies and to Royal Dutch Petroleum, which is already producing in the Sahara.

To date, combines made up of the Royal Dutch-Shell group, the French government and French oil companies have pumped $135 million into the Sahara.

They plan to invest $700 million there in the next four years, build pipelines from Hassi Messaoud and oil-rich Edjelé to coastal ports. Said French Chief Engineer Christian Redron at Hassi Messaoud: “In a few years we may no longer have to depend on the whims of a Nasser.”

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