BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 21
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:
Thanks to new discoveries, Iran's mining reserves will increase by 20 percent to reach 60 billion tons by the end of current Iranian year (from March 20, 2020 to March 21, 2021), said Daroush Esmaeili, Deputy Minister of Industry, Mines and Trade of Iran, Trend reports citing IRIB.
According to Esmaeili, Iran's mining reserves presently stand at 50 billion tons.
Esmaeili added that 410 million tons of mining items were extracted in the country last Iranian year (from March 21, 2019 to March 20, 2020). This figure will increase by 25 percent this year, mainly iron ore, copper, steel, lead, zinc and gold.
"Steel ingot production increased from 26 million tons to 28 million last Iranian year (from March 21, 2019 to March 20, 2020)," he said.
The deputy minister said that more than 25 percent of Iran's non-oil exports are mining products, including steel, copper, aluminum, lead and zinc. The focus will be on increasing exports of these products this year.
Esmaeili said that Iran does not use even 25 percent of production and export potential in its mining sector. The main problem of enterprises operating in this area is the supply of raw materials.
According to the deputy minister, more than 6 million tons of iron ore were exported in raw form in the last Iranian year. However, this process will change this year. Thus, the export of crude iron ore will be stopped and used in related industries in the country.
Esmaeili said that there are 10,700 mines in Iran. As many as 5,650 of them are active.
"As for the restored mines, 146 out of more than 4,000 inactive mines were restored last Iranian year. It is planned to restore the activity of 1,300 mines in the current Iranian year as well," he said.
