CHARACTERIZAT ION AND REDUCIB IL ITY OF ITAKPE AND AGBAJA (N IGERIAN) IRON ORES

XRD, and optical and electron microscopy. Itakpe iron ore is hematite-rich, t is mineral being intergrown with magnetite, and silica is the major impurity. Agbaja ore is an acidic o61ite ore consisting of goethite and magnetite, with alumina, silica and phosphorus as major impurities. Itakpe is typical of a rich ore formed by magmatic segregation whilst Agbaja is a lean ore of sedimentary origin. Isothermal mass-change measurements in hydrogen and carbon monoxide in the range 800-1100 ~ show Agbaja to be less reducible than Itakpe; in particular, Agbaja is very irreducible at 1100 ~ because of sintering of the ore. Characterization and reducibility experiments were also carried out on Corby (Northamptonshire, UK) iron ore for comparison. Until recently, Nigeria has had no significant iron and steel industry. The total steel consumption in 1968 was estimated as 5.5 kg/caput, compared with 650 kg/caput for industrialized nations and a world average of 150 kg/caput (Robson, 1968). This steel was obtained either by very small-scale internal manufacture or by large-scale importation. Iron ore reserves in Nigeria have been estimated at 11 000 million tonnes (Anon, 1963) and plans have been made to use these indigenous ores. The present study was designed to characterize two quite different major deposits from Itakpe and Agbaja and to assess thei