Iran’s Mineral Reserves Ups Via Development Of Explorations: Report

The development of mining exploration as one of the basic policies of the 11th and 12th administrations of Iran has resulted in an over one-billion ton increase in mineral reserves, IRNA reported. Exploration operations in the mining sector have so far added more than 1.1 billion tons to the country’s mineral reserves. The volume of exploration activities started by the 11th administration in 2013 and the increase in the performance area in the mining sector (250,000 sq. km in 2013, which has reached 270,000 sq. km today) are unprecedented. A study on previous mining exploration activities reveals that inadequacy of annual allocation budgets has been one of the main reasons for inefficiency in recent years.

Surveys, studies and speculations about the country's mineral resources, and basic information cited by experts, are more than half a century old, and the lack of effective activity in this area has left a negative effect on the national economy. The 11th administration (2013-17) introduced a new opportunity to the mining sector, and that was the cooperation of the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) with the Geological Survey and Mineral Exploration of Iran.

In the exploration zones of Iran, a new program started from the Sangan mineral area in the northeast of the country (Khorasan Razavi Province) and then spread to other regions of Iran. The result of this massive activity in 36 areas of Iran was the identification of more than 400 mining areas.

Over 80 exploration projects in different regions

Studies show that since the beginning of exploration activities, a sum of 82 projects were implemented in basic design, detail design, and supplementary exploration phases in different regions of the country. These projects accomplished in various mineral fields including iron, coal, polymetallic, gold, copper, antimony, lead and zinc, chromite, titanium, nickel, molybdenum, barite, phosphate, bauxite, brine (potash, magnesium, lithium …).

Evaluation of the activities shows that in the supplementary gold exploration project of Zarshuran in Takab of West Azerbaijan Province, the reserves of this mine witnessed a 50 rise.
Identify new reserves

The result of the exploration activities is the discovery of new mineral reserves. The preliminary results of the study on eight minerals of gold, thermal coal and coke, iron ore, antimony, rare earth elements, barite and bauxite show an increase of over 1.189 billion ton in reserves.

For example, a total of 65,000 tons of rare earth elements, whose amount of reserves were not studied in Iran, have been discovered so far.

From gold to iron ore

According to official statistics by IMIDRO, the mining exploration activities resulted in identifying 42 tons of new gold reserves, bringing the total amount of reserves of the country to 294 tons.
Bauxite (aluminum raw material) also increased by 21 million tons, from the previous 14 million tons of total reserves to 35 million tons.

Discovery of 103 million tons of barite was achieved through exploration plans, and considering the 10 million tons of previous reserves, 113 million tons of this type of mineral has now been identified.

In the field of antimony, Iran also has 30,000 tons of new reserves, and by accumulation of the previous 5,000 tons, the country has now reached the level of 35,000 tons.

The new discovered metallurgical coal reserves are 345 million tons, and by adding the 752 million tons of previously discovered coal, the proved reserves are 1.097 billion tons.

In addition, in the field of thermal coal, with the exploration of 220 million tons of new reserves, the total current reserves will increase from 410 million tons to 630 million tons.

Today, the country's steelmakers are concerned with the development of projects which need greater supply of iron ore.

The discovery of 500 million tons of new iron ore reserves and the previous reserves of 2.65 billion tons brought the total amount to 3.15 billion tons which can be fed to the steel industry of the country.

IMIDRO is now considering a 650,000-sq. km exploration target, of which 270,000 sq. km has been achieved and the rest is on the agenda.

Previous statistics show that the country’s identified reserves were about 60 billion tons, of which 40 billion tons are proved reserves and the rest are probable reserves. - Iran Daily