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By Trend

Managing Director of Iran Zinc Mines Development Company Ardeshir Sa'ad Mohammadi said the country’s iron ore reserves are expected to run out in the next two years.

"Currently, 80 million tons of Iran’s extracted iron ore are being processed at plants inside the country," Sa'ad Mohammadi said, according to the official website of IMIDRO.

Saying that the country is capable of producing 48 million tons of iron ore concentrate and 45 million tons of granulated iron annually, he said, "Iran will need to produce 160 million tons of iron ore by 2025".

He said the private sector is exporting the iron ore pellets and that the country will have no reserves in the next two years to export any.

Sa'ad Mohammadi said Iran is seeking to turn its iron ore concentrate products into high added-value products, such as iron ore pellets.

Iranian miners exported a total of 20.67 million tons of iron ore in the last fiscal year (March 2017-18), according to statistics released by market analyst, Keyvan Jafari Tehrani, and SteelMint.

China was Iran’s primary iron ore shipment destination, as it accounted for 19.66 million tons of overall exports. It was followed by Malaysia with 313,150 tons, Russia with 44,000 tons, the UAE with 30,000 tons, Pakistan with 25,000 tons and other destinations with an aggregate of 607,265 tons.

Iran was the sixth largest supplier of the commodity to China in 2017, as shipments to the industrial giant make up about 91 percent of Iranian iron ore miners’ exports. Iran’s share of Chinese iron ore imports stood at 2.3-2.5 percent in 2013. The country exported a total of 23.5 million tons, over 90 percent of which went to China.

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