Baku, Azerbaijan, July 18
By Fatih Karimov– Trend:
Iran has started the extraction operation from its largest lead and zinc mine July 18, during a ceremony attended my Industry Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh.
Located at 116 kilometers southeast of Yazd city in south eastern Iran, the mine contains over 160 million tons of lead with 2.3 percent purity and zinc with purity of 7.3 percent, Amin Safari, managing director of the mine complex said, Mehr news agency reported.
About 70 percent of the mine’s reservoir is zinc.
The mine, which has the world’s second largest lead and zinc reserve, also contains over 10 million tons of barite with specific gravity of 3.6 percent, Safari said.
He added that about 400,000 tons of barite and 1,200 tons of lead and zinc will be extracted from the mine annually.
A contract has been signed with Mobin Trust Consortium, based on which an 800,000-ton zinc concentrate unit will be constructed within five years.
Iran possesses 7 percent of the world’s total mineral deposits with about 68 kinds of commercially valued minerals, including gold reserves. The volume of Iran’s minerals is estimated at 57 billion tons.
The Islamic Republic is among the 10 major mineral-rich countries.
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