The El Aouj Project (EAP) is owned by El Aouj Mining Company (EMC) – a Mauritanian company which is 50% owned by SNIM (Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière) and 50% by Sphere Minerals Limited.

The El Aouj project is a greenfield project and will be developed in stages. The Stage 1 development is designed to mine and process 13.7Mtpa of magnetite iron ore to produce approximately 6.6Mtpa of iron ore concentrate at a target grade of 66.5% Fe.

A planned Stage 2 development includes a duplicate process plant (process train) to double the mining and processing capacity to 27.4Mtpa of ore feed.

The project's offsite infrastructure includes an “infrastructure corridor” which starts at the Touajil aquifer about 90 km south of El Aouj. A pipeline system will transport water from Touajil bore-wells to the mine site and a new railway and access road will branch off the existing rail and road systems in the F’derik town area linking them to El Aouj.

The product will be transported to Nouadhibou and loaded on to ocean going vessels for export by SNIM using its existing railway and port facilities.