“Currently, 40 development plans for copper production, with a value of 7.35 billion dollars, are underway across the country, and through the implementation of these projects, Iran’s annual production capacity of copper will rise from the current 200,000 tons to 700,000 tons, showing a 3.5-fold increase,” Ardeshir Sa’ad Mohammadi told the IRNA news agency in interview published on Sunday.
He stated that Iran currently has the world’s 9th largest reserves of copper and expressed hope that the country would rise two places to seventh place by the end of the current year.
Two years ago, Iran stood in 13th place, but due to the discovery of new copper deposits, rose to 9th last year, he added.
He went on to say that Iran currently has 32.5 million tons of copper reserves, but this figure will increase in the coming months.
Industry, Mines and Trade Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari announce at the World Copper Congress in Tehran last month that “Iran's copper production which is already about 200,000 tons per year (tpy) will rise to 700,000 tpy by doing an investment of about 80 trillion rials ($7.3 billion), while the export value of copper will rise from $1.3 billion to $ 4.5 billion by March 2016.”
Iran possesses Asia’s second largest copper deposits which comprise 25.3% of Asian reserves and around 6% of global reserves.
Based on recent surveys, some parts of Iranian mine deposits are located on the world copper belt, stretching from south eastern to northwestern and Azerbaijan district. The world copper deposits have been estimated at 57000 million tons, except for China and the former Soviet Union.
HL/PA
MNA
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