(Ecofin Agency) - In northern Guinea, the Simandou North project led by Australian company Arrow Minerals has been garnering attention in recent months. Despite being in the early exploration stage, the initial drilling results have sparked optimism.

Arrow Minerals has already announced promising findings from its iron ore project located north of the renowned Simandou deposit's four blocks. Drilling samples have intercepted high-grade iron mineralization, reaching up to 63%.

"We have had a very good start to our drilling program, especially as this is the beginning of the first systematic drilling campaign on the project, and we are still trying to establish basic geological parameters such as the orientation of the mineralization," commented CEO David Flanagan.

Besides the high grades intercepted, the company has received other "promising" results from metallurgical tests conducted on "canga" drilling targets (a type of iron ore found near the surface and easily exploitable). These results suggest that the iron ore grade could be increased by about 4% through simple dry crushing and screening methods.

Although it is still early in the exploration process, Arrow Minerals is already considering exploiting these resources for direct shipment to the market (DSO), which won't require complex or costly processing because the extracted ore will have a sufficiently high iron grade to be sold directly to steel mills. Further drilling and analysis are still needed to confirm these options.

The Simandou North project is located north of the globally renowned Guinean iron ore deposit, Simandou. At this time, the Guinean government expects exports from the deposit to begin in 2025, as railway and port infrastructure construction progresses. These infrastructures could be used for the Simandou North project if a deposit is discovered.