The Egyptian Black Sand Company (EBSC), an Egyptian joint-stock company affiliated with the armed forces' National Service Projects Organization, signed a deal June 12 in Cairo with the Chinese firm Weiyuan Minerals. Under the deal, a joint Chinese-Egyptian company will be established to train technical personnel to extract minerals from the black sands of al-Borolus, in the northern Kafr el-Sheikh governorate. This area, which lies along the western branch of the Nile, was chosen because of its 300 million tons of black sand found in 118 kilometers (73 miles) of its northern coast.
The deal was signed in the presence of the shareholders of the EBSC, the Nuclear Materials Authority, the National Investment Bank, the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority, the governor of Kafr el-Sheikh and Weiyuan Minerals.
The EBSC was established in 2016 to facilitate the exploitation of economic minerals from black sand throughout Egypt.
On May 19, the same local partners signed a cooperation protocol with the Australian company Mineral Technologies to establish a plant for mineral extraction from the area's black sand. This cooperation protocol came as part of Egypt’s plan to make the best use of the available economic resources and achieve comprehensive development in all sectors.
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