Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 30
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
MPs from Iran 's East Azerbaijan are pursuing the case of establishing Sungun copper smelting plant, which has been delayed for several years.
The plant was to be established in the Sungun copper complex located near Varzaqan city in East Azarbaijan.
Mir Hadi Gharaseyyed, the head of East Azerbaijan MPs faction in parliament said that the issue of establishing the smelting plant is seriously pursued by the Azerbaijani MPs, however, he said that the administration and the National Iranian Copper Industries Company have not made a decision to establish the plant, the Iranian Mehr news agency reported Oct. 30.
For the time being, the Sungun mine's extracted copper is melted in other plants outside the East Azerbaijan and this brings criticism from the region's MPs.
Sungun is the largest open-cast copper mine in Iran and is in the primary stages of extraction. Its reserves are estimated to be as much as 995 million metric tons of copper ore. The ore is processed directly at a concentration plant at the mine and then carried out to southern Kerman province for melting.
Gharaseyyed said that the members of the East Azerbaijan MPs faction recently met with managing director of the National Iranian Copper Industries Company, Ahmad Morad Alizade, in which the tension raised while the official defend the current procedure saying establishing the plant is not economically justified.
Earlier in 2008, the government announced that the country's most modern copper melting plant was to be inaugurated in Sungun complex by 2012.
In 2009, then Minister of Industries, Mines and Trade Aliakbar Mehrabian, said that the agreement for establishing the plant was finalized and it would be inaugurated in the next four years.