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Angola Table of Contents

Angola

Other Minerals

In addition to diamonds and iron ore, Angola is also rich in several other mineral resources that had not been fully exploited by the late 1980s. These include manganese, copper, gold, phosphates, granite, marble, uranium, quartz, lead, zinc, wolfram, tin, fluorite, sulfur, feldspar, kaolin, mica, asphalt, gypsum, and talc. The government hoped to resume mining in the southwest for crystalline quartz and ornamental marble. It has been estimated that 5,000 cubic meters of marble could be extracted annually over a period of twenty years. A state-owned company mined granite and marble in Huíla and Namibe provinces and in 1983 produced 4,450 cubic meters of granite and 500 cubic meters of marble. Since then, the company has ceased production to re-equip with modern machinery. Quartz production, however, was suspended indefinitely because of the military situation in the areas close to the extraction sites in Cuanza Sul Province.

The government established a company in 1980 to exploit phosphate deposits located in the northwest. There were 50 million tons of deposits in Zaire Province and about 100 million tons in Cabinda. Although studies of the deposits in both locations have been made by Bulgarian and Yugoslav companies, as of 1988 production had not started at either site.

Data as of February 1989