Major iron ore production countries
Among the best producers of iron ores inside the world, Brazil, Australia, China, India and CIS (former USSR) are critical for their levels of production and Sweden is equally crucial for underground mining and its automation. In case of former four countries, 80 to 90 percent ores comes from opencast mines whereas in case of latter, really whole production comes from underground mining. Mass production of iron ore in these countries has resulted in technological development especially in opencast mines, but just about every country has retained her technologies culture in a particular form.
China
Since the formation of People’s Republic of China, iron ore mining has been establishing from 0.six million tonnes in 1948 to 520 million tonnes of crude ore (usable ore: 276.four million tonnes) within the year through 2006. Iron ore production from underground mines has only 10 – 12 percent share. Considerable progress has been created within the field of mining technology and mining machinery . China is presently creating crude steel 420 Mt in the year 2006. This level of crude steel production will demand about 660 Mt of iron ore annually and to cope up with this scenario, the country has taken sound steps.
Present Status
The methodology of extraction of iron ore getting adopted in China is by means of open cast mining approaches by shovel-dumper mixture, shovel-dumper conveyor transport / Railway haulage transport. You will discover also couple of underground iron ore mines in China. Mining technology and significant technical equipment for big opencast mines having production of ten Mt and above have come as much as the degree of world’s developed countries. The recovery of iron ores from underground mines has come to about 80 percent, but dilution of ore with waste has come down to 15-20 percent, and for the underground mines, labour productivity has gone close to 2,000 tonnes per man-year.