Situated at 150 km east of Ouarzazate, on the northern hillside of Saghro Mount, the Imiter deposit exploited since the 8th century as confirmed by the numerous archeological evidence excavated in this location.
In the 60s, an aerophotography firm tracked traces of ancient works and laid the ground for the discovery of the deposit . Mining research and valorization studies conducted by the Bureau de Recherches et des Participation Minière (BRPM) led to the establishment of the Imiter Metallurgical Company (SMI) whose corporate capital is shared between the BRPM (69%) and the ONA Group (31%).
The reserves are estimated at 1200 tons of metallic silver exploitable over some ten years.
  

  

In 1988, a new mining infrastructure, a new processing plant, a smelting plant, an analysis laboratory, a maintenance workshop and sociocultural equipment were set up.
Following this expansion, the processing capacity of SMI passed from 200 to 650 tons of ore a day, and its annual production capacity from 40 to 120 tons of metallic silver.
In the 90s, SMI increased its production capacity of metallic silver to an average of 200 tons of ore a year, ranking Morocco number one in Africa and 10 worldwide.
In 1995, the Imiter deposit II was discovered at 1,500 meters of the initial deposit.
Following the privatization of the SMI and the acquisition of the Igoudrane deposit, the expansion project of the Imiter Mine was launched between 1996 and 1998. The extension of the SMI plant in 1999 increased its processing capacity to 1,400 t/day.