2: Some Aspects of Mineral Economics

2.1 Introduction
A large economically mineable mineral deposit, e.g. 50 Mt underlying an
area of 2km2, is minute in comparison with the earth's crust and in most
countries the easily discovered deposits cropping out at the surface have
nearly all been found. The deposits we now search for are largely con-
cealed and require sophisticated exploration methods to find them. We
usually refer to the target material in these deposits as ore, unless we use a
more specific term such as coal, gas, oil or water. So what is ore? And what
sort of ore is nowadays financially viable to look for and exploit? To answer
these questions we must have some knowledge of mineral economics.

2.2 Mineral economics

2.2.1 Ore

The word ore formerly, and strictly, meant material from which a metal or
metals could be won at a profit. An economically mineable ore deposit is
normally called an orebody. There has, however, been a slow extension in
the meanings of these words to include industrial minerals and bulk mate-
rials. Industrial minerals are any rock, mineral or other naturally occur-
ring substance of economic value, exclusive of metallic ores, mineral fuels
and gemstones. They are, therefore, minerals where either the mineral
itself, e.g. baryte, industrial diamond or the oxide or some other com-
pound derived from any mineral (but not the elemental metal) has an
industrial application (end use). They include rocks such as granite, sand,
gravel, limestone that are used for constructional purposes (in fragmental
form these are often referred to as aggregates or bulk materials) as well as
more valuable minerals with specific chemical or physical properties like
fluorite, kaolinite, perlite and phosphates. Confusingly, some oxides and
other compounds derived from 'metallic ores', e.g. A120 3 from bauxite,
normally considered as aluminium ore, Ti02 from ilmenite (titanium ore),
are also important raw materials for industrial mineral end uses and, as
indicated above, are then classified with the industrial minerals.
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