Reports suggested that Algerian economist and financial-engineering expert Djelloul Slama has been detained after commenting on the country’s iron-ore megaproject project, marketed as an economic milestone by the regime of Tebboune.
Slama is a well-known media commentator whose analyses on Algerian economic policy, fiscal imbalances and structural challenges are widely disseminated in Algeria. He is not an opposition figure or a politician.
The circumstances surrounding these reports underscore the limited civic and media spaces in an increasingly authoritarian Algeria. Technical commentary in Algeria has become increasingly politicized, especially when it touches on major state projects such as the vast Gara Djebilet iron‑ore mine.
Algeria announced the beginning of exploitation of the Gâra Djebilet deposit in Tindouf Province, once part of the Kingdom of Morocco/
The mine is estimated to contain 3.5 billion tons, approximately 1.7 billion of which are exploitable.
Experts have long questioned the project’s low potential profitability. The ore’s high phosphorus content requires costly and technically complex dephosphorization, a process repeatedly cited as a major obstacle to achieving competitive output.
The project also sits atop a historical layer of unresolved regional cooperation. In 1972, Algeria and Morocco signed a joint agreement for the development of Gâra Djebilet, including transport of iron through Moroccan territory to the Atlantic. That agreement “was not followed up” and never implemented; but it remains in place.
This abandoned cooperation still frames regional discussions around logistics and potential export routes, particularly as Algeria pushes ahead with costly rail infrastructure to link the mine to Béchar and the national network.
The mine is central to Algeria’s long‑standing extractivist development model, an attempt to diversify away from hydrocarbons by doubling down on large‑scale resource projects. Despite government ambitions to build an integrated steel industry and reduce imports, Algeria remains heavily dependent on raw‑material extraction for economic planning.
