الفهرس 
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Abstract
This study aims to evaluate limestone and claystone southwest El Alamein city, North Egypt as raw materials for the cement industry due to the insufficiency occurrence of reserves in the area. Also, Egypt starts building new smart cities and mega projects on the northern coast. This evaluation is carried out through four stages; field investigations (survey and mapping), detailed exploration program (core drilling, field Lithology description, and laboratory testing), reserve estimation (geostatistical analysis and grade calculations), and economic analysis (net present value and benefit-cost ratio).
Twenty-five boreholes were drilled in the studied limestone, where One Hundred-forty-four samples were studied for the lithology description, then being tested for major chemical composition. Other thirty-three samples were tested for physical properties. Four special representative samples were analyzed for petrographic characteristics, and one sample for X-Ray Diffraction analysis. In the studied claystone, sixteen boreholes were drilled and One Hundred-sixty-two samples were studied for the lithology description, Sixty-six samples for the chemical composition, ten samples for the physical properties, two special samples for petrographic analysis, and one sample for X-Ray Diffraction analysis.
Mineralogy, petrography, and physical properties results indicated that limestone contains 64% calcite and 36% aragonite and is classified as OobioSparite limestone with an average bulk density of 1.56 tons/m3 and moisture content average of 1.02 %. The claystone contains 60% montmorillonite and 40% kaolinite which is classified as mudstone with an average bulk density of 2.0 ton/m3 and moisture content average of
31.12%. An interpretation between the geochemical results and lithology
description is performed. Eleven cross-sections have been drawn for the studied limestone and eight cross-sections for the studied claystone.
Validation and geostatistical analysis of raw data has been discussed through isopach distribution maps and histogram representations. A geological database has been created for both rock types in Surpac software for estimating the grade reserves accurately by Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) method. The estimated reserve for limestone is 9.3 million tons with an overburden quantity of 2.3 million m3, and for the claystone is 16.6 million tons with an overburden quantity of 2.6 million m3. Lime saturation factor, Alumina ratio, and silica ratio has been calculated for the final grade reserves and raw mix composition has been determined with average percentages of limestone and claystone 84.14% and 13.42%, respectively with the addition of 1.71% sand and 0.73% iron oxides.
An economic and valuation analysis of the measured reserves of the limestone and claystone by applying Benefit-Cost Analyses (B/C) of the forecasted costs and benefits for the proposed quarry projects in the studied area. Egyptian Regulations, quarrying method, geology, and economic factors were discussed. The calculated (B/C) ratio for the proposed limestone quarry is 1.3 that may qualify the project as profitable, and 1.08 for the proposed claystone quarry may qualify the project also as profitable.
The final results of this study concluded that the studied limestone and claystone are suitable raw materials for OPC manufacturing, and they might be a profitable quarry project. A recommendation for exploring the dolomite under the studied limestone for maximization of the economic potentiality.