The National Iranian Copper Industries Company’s (NICIC’s) total copper reserves have risen to over 8bn mt after the company discovered 1bn mt of new reserves of the red metal in Iran.
NICIC’s new deposit is expected to be worth IRR350tn ($8.33bn), Ardeshir Sa’d-Mohammadi, managing director, indicated per media reports on Jun 27. The new deposit adds to NICIC’s 523mn mt of copper discovered in the previous Iranian calendar year, 1398 (March 2019-March 2020). Mohammadi added that the country had the world’s seventh-largest copper reserves.
In the first two months (March 2021-May 2021) of the Iranian calendar year 1399, the country’s copper concentrate production increased by 3pc to 214,854mt compared to the same two months last year. In May, Iran’s copper concentrate output trended flat at 106,487mt from the same month last year.
Iran plans to begin operating three more copper-related projects during its current calendar year that are expected to add another 400,000mt to the country’s copper cathode production.
($1=IRR42,025)