According to numbers just released by the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization, Iran’s mining sector churned out 84.89 million tons of minerals from mid-March to mid-June, which is a 9.49-percent increase year on year.
The period of March 21 through June 21, which corresponds with Iran’s first quarter of the fiscal year, saw Iran’s three main aluminium-producing firms collectively registered a 5.51 percent drop year-on-year, combining to produce 82,605 tons of aluminium.
The publicly-traded Iran Aluminum Company (IRALCO), which was the first firm in the country to produce aluminium, produced 41,720 tons in the quarter. Iralco also produced 61,166 tons of alumina, a 3.97 percent increase year-on-year.
Hormozal Aluminum Company, which jointly operates a 147-thousand-metric-tons-per-year smelter in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas with a firm from Italy, produced 26,064 tons.
Almahdi Aluminum Company smelted a total of 14,821 tons.
Though still developing, Iran’s mining sector is a significant contributor to the global mineral market, typically ranked among the top fifteen mineral-rich countries on Earth. The Persian country boasts sixty-eight types of minerals under its soil, totaling some 37 billion metric tons of proven resources and over 57 million metric tons of potential reserves. Iran’s total reserves are estimated to be worth US$770 billion in 2014 dollars, but it is not a significant contributor to the country’s economy, accounting for only 4% of the nation’s GDP. The country’s mining sector is hampered by a lack of appropriate infrastructure, legal barriers, difficulties in exploration, and the government’s control over the entirety of the country’s mineral resources.