Over the past decades, the world's iron ore production trend has increased significantly along with the growth of global steel production. In Iran, iron ore is the raw material for steel production and 98% of the extracted iron ore is used for steel production. The automotive and construction industries are the main consumers of steel. (Photo quoted from Yahoo image)
Iran is a vast country and has high God-given blessings of mines and mineral reserves. More than several iron ore deposits have been known, only some of them have been studied. Iran also has a variety of iron ores due to its special geographical conditions.
The current trend of iron ore production is far from the country's perspective document. Meanwhile, the goal for 2025 is to create a production capacity of 55 million tons of steel ingots and to reach the eighth rank in the world from the current tenth rank of steel production. This requires 160 million tons of iron ore annually.
A decade ago, Iran was exporting more than 20 million tons of crude iron ore annually, but with a new approach and preventing the sale of crude, Iran turned to a steel producer from an importer.
Last year, Iran produced 90 million tons of iron ore, of which six million tons were exported. But it seems that by revoking licenses to export iron ore by the government, iron ore exports have fallen sharply this year (mostly low-grade, unusable ore).
There are various statistics and information about the amount of iron ore reserves in Iran. Some emphasize the existence of 4.4 to more than 8 billion tons of iron ore in different parts of the country. Some also emphasize the storage of 2.8 billion tons of iron ore.
It seems that the production of Iranian iron ore mines has been decreased. Part of this is due to the coronavirus pandemic, most of which has been in the private sector and small mines.
Also, another reason for reducing the production of iron ore mines is the rules imposed for export restrictions and the shrinking of the mining sales market, the pricing method and the selling price of iron ore to domestic steel factories.
The most important challenges of iron ore production in Iran, like many other countries, are: quality of iron ore, production costs, shortage of skilled labor, and amount of investment, environmental regulations and geopolitical risks. In addition, regulatory pricing and government approaches are obstacles to development.
In addition, the most exploration of iron ore mines in Iran belongs to the early decades of the establishment of the Geological Survey and Mineral Exploration of Iran. Since then, no serious work has been done in this area and no important mines have been added to this complex. Therefore, one of the minerals in the country whose reserves are running out is iron ore.
Lack of exploration of iron ore is the Achilles heel of the steel production chain. Exploration of Iran's iron ore mines is irreversible and requires a mutation.
Therefore, the government, with the cooperation and interaction of the private sector, should take steps to identify and explore new iron ore mines, so that in the coming years, it will not have to import iron ore.
In addition, the lack of appropriate technology in the mining sector hinders the development and exploration of the country's iron ore. Lack of investment, neglecting the forgotten sector of low-grade hematite iron ore mines (with more than 1.3 billion tons of hematite reserves), premature closure of some mines, low willingness of steel and steel companies to be present in the exploration sector in the iron ore sector, sector weakens Iran's iron ore production sector in the exploration and extraction.
This is while more iron ore will be needed for exploration of steel projects in the country.
Farzad Ramezani Bonesh
Senior Researcher and Analyst of International Affairs
