THE POSSIBILITY OF COMPLEX DEVELOPMENT OF IRON DEPOSITS OF ARMENIA AND THEIR COMPARATIVE EVALUATION

Abstract

The geographic and economic characteristics of iron ore deposits in Armenia are summarized. Brief information on the morphological features of these deposits, on the ore dressability, presence of associated components in them and their extraction is given. The issues on the integrated development of iron ore deposits have been studied and the elements of the integrated development for each deposit have been clarified. It turned out that for the Hrazdan deposit by the complex development, issues of using ore-bearing rocks as building materials, enrichment tailings in cement production and extracting gold from ores as an associated component are relevant. For the remaining deposits, it is more important to extract useful mineral components from the ore: from Abovyan ores - apatite, rare-earth elements, from Bazum ores - cobalt, vanadium and gold, from Svarants ores - titanium, magnesium, and vanadium. In the Abovyan field, we note that the part of the tails, which does not decompose in acids, can serve as row material for the production of glass. To clarify the potential of iron ore deposits in Armenia, their comparative assessment was carried out, identifying the advantages and disadvantages of those deposits. As a result of this comparision, it turned out that the Hrazdan iron-ore deposit is separated from the rest of the deposits in terms of a number of merits: the deposit is located in an area that has a developed infrastructure; the balance reserves of ore and iron have been thoroughly explored and approved; the ore body has an exit to the earth surface and a gently sloping fall, which makes it possible to mine ore with a low overburden coefficient; ore deposits have undergone deep technological research; from the high-quality concentrates obtained by semi-industrial testing, pure high-grade iron was ob-tained. Based on the study, the Hrazdan iron-ore deposit is proposed as a priority development object. The second object of development may be the Abovian iron-ore deposit, after performing some preparatory work. It is concluded that Armenia has a sufficient mineral resource base for the creation of the iron ore industry and ferrous metallurgy.