Hydrocarbons in Mannar basin :

Value-added products from mineral resources

Nimal Wijesinghe Anuradhapura Additional District group corr

Lanka Mineral Sands Ltd is looking forward to manufacturing value-added products from industrial mineral resources including ilmenite, rutile and zircon.

The Geological Surveys and Mines Bureau (GSMB) has successfully conducted several mineral sand surveys at the request of tenement holders along the eastern coast between Tirukkovil and Kokilai during the last few years.

Though no energy minerals have yet been extracted on land or within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the country’s offshore, the presence of hydrocarbons within an offshore exploration treatment area in the Mannar basin was reported recently and detailed research work is now in progress.

The industrial mineral resources in Sri Lanka include graphite, ilmenite, rutile, zircon, feldspar, ball clay kaolin, apatite, silica sand, vein quartz, mica, miocene, limestone, calacite and dolomite.

The beach sand deposits at Pulmoddai in the North East of Sri Lanka are also presently being exploited by Lanka Mineral Sands Ltd. Preliminary research work has revealed that these particular deposits contain an approximate six million tonnes of heavy mineral sands and that these reserves are replenished every year during the North East Monsoon period.

According to Lanka Mineral Sands Ltd sources, the composition of the sand is 70%-75% ilmenite, 8% -10% zircon and about 10% rutile.

In 2011 Lanka Mineral Sands produced 62,955 tonnes of ilmenite as against 52,637 tonnes the previous year. In 2011 the production of rutile had been 1970 tonnes while zircon was 641 tonnes.

The Sri Lanka Minerals year book for 2012 states that since 2008 and upto 2011 around 325,330 tonnes of ilmenite, rutile and zircon worth Rs. 5,100 million have been exported. The main buyers have been India, Japan, China, Italy, UAE and Singapore. Investigations so far carried out with the support of foreign expertise have revealed significant reserves of mineral sand exists in the North Western coastal belt around Puttalam.

The estimated amount here is nearly 1.07 billion tonnes of sand with seven to eight percent heavy minerals, mainly containing ilmenite.

Further, a promising deposit containing an approximate reserve of 7.2 million tonnes of heavy minerals has been revealed by surveys at Nayaru, Thevikallu and Podovakkadu between Mullaithivu and Nilaweli GSMB sources revealed.

Other beach silicate mineral sand deposits that could be exploited have been identified in Induruwa, Beruwala (monazite, zircon and garnet), the mouth of the Kelani river (ilmenite), Negombo Northern Zone (ilmenite), Kudiramalai Point (Monazite), Southkovil (ilmenite) and Hambantota (garnet).