Official media in Iran are reporting the discovery of what is thought to be the largest known porphyry copper deposit in the Middle East.
The resource, said to contain around 3bn tonnes of copper ore, would, if verified, quickly move on to the radar of companies driving the transition to green energy – vastly expanded volumes of copper are needed to drive that transition, meaning the race is on to locate giant deposits, the likes of which some Iranian officials are claiming to have discovered. What’s more, a huge lithium deposit claimed by Iran already has commodity dealers excited about the potentially immense role Iran could play in supplying raw materials to emerging green industries, such as electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing.
State broadcaster IRIB and official news agency IRNA relayed news of the copper discovery, also bigger than anything of its kind in North Africa, that appears to have been first reported by provincial media covering the southeastern province of Kerman.
“The future of nations is tied to the copper industry,” Amir Hassan Zadeh, deputy for economic affairs of the governorate of Kerman, was quoted as saying, noting Iran is located on a very favourable part of the world's copper belt.
Porphyry copper deposits are made up of orebodies that can also contain silver, gold and molybdenum. Such deposits are currently the world's largest source of copper ore.
The discovered deposit in Kerman is located in the vicinity of Sarcheshmeh, which already boasts a major open-cast copper mining and refining complex with a workforce of 18,000 exploiting a giant lode estimated as containing more than a billion tonnes of copper.
The new deposit was mapped with the drilling of 106 exploratory boreholes with a length of 93,000 metres. Plans are in place for a second exploration phase that will drill 60 boreholes with a length of around 80,000 sqm. This could conceivably boost the porphyry copper estimate to 4bn tonnes or more.
Iran currently ranks fifth in the world for copper reserves. The country also has extensive copper reserves in Sungun near the country’s northwestern border with Turkey. In fact, last week saw the launch of copper production in Sungun, where a modern smelter has been set up for output produced by open-cast operations.
The National Iranian Copper Industries Co (NICICO) is the third largest company on the Tehran Stock Exchange.
A NICICO executive, Behrouz Rahmati, noted tht Iran's mineral reserves stood at 57bn tonnes, ranking the country as one of the top 10 mineral-rich nations in the world.
He said that copper, the third most consumed metal in the world, has already brought Iran $10bn in foreign exchange.
Analysts say that given the expanding appetite for copper driven by the green energy revolution, there is still a sore lack of large-scale copper mines worldwide.
This year saw Anglo-Australian giant Rio Tinto’s long-delayed launch of mining at the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert.
When the mining operation peaks in 2030, it will be the world’s fourth-biggest source of copper, churning out half a million tonnes a year, according to Rio. That’s enough to meet demands in the making of around 6mn electric vehicles or 60 of the biggest wind farms.
bneGREEN: Iran's giant lithium deposit promises to be a game-changer
Iran’s neighbours are concerned by the Islamic Republic's rising economic influence since the discovery of a huge lithium deposit on Iranian territory that some observers have described as a game-changer, Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen reported on June 10.
Israel, a country particularly concerned by both Iran's improving military technology and potential to become a substantial and influential economic power, is watching closely. The lithium field in the western Hamadan province is thought to be the second largest in the world after a deposit in Chile, containing an estimated 8.5mn tonnes of lithium. That would give Iran control of 10% of the world's known lithium reserves of 89mn tonnes. That has the potential to bolster Iran's economy and mitigate the impact of sanctions. It would also give the Middle East power considerable leverage in the burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) market.
Lithium is a metal that some have dubbed the “new oil” because of its importance in the making of EVs. Iran's lithium discovery could open the way to an “unparalleled geopolitical and economic advantage” for Iran, leading to a “rebalancing of power in the region,” Anat Hochberg-Marom, an independent strategic consultant to government agencies and security institutions, told Israel’s major tabloid newspaper Maariv.
There is in fact a fast-expanding storehouse of mineral reserves that the Islamic Republic is intending to exploit including zinc, copper, salt, coal, iron ore, uranium, lead, gold, bauxite (for aluminium), molybdenum, antimony and sulphur.
All in all, around 7% of global mineral reserves are found in Iran, making it one of the most important mineral producers in the world, though the country, partly because of the sanctions burden it endures, often lacks the required technology to exploit resources fully. Mineral products currently make up no more than 0.6% of Iranian GDP. At current rates, Iran’s mineral reserves are worth $700bn, with value-added estimated at $4 trillion, according to Iranian reports.
Iran announced that its lithium reserves rank as the fourth-largest in the world in April. It plans to start production of lithium within two years, Tasnim reported on March 6 cited an official as saying.
South America still leads the world in lithium deposits by a considerable margin, with Chile home to deposits of 9.2mn tonnes of lithium, or 58% of the global reserves.
China is currently the world's largest market for lithium batteries as EV sales there soar; in the first quarter over 60% of all cars sold in the country were either electric or hybrid modes. In 2021, the global lithium-ion battery market reached 545 GWh, and China accounted for more than half of the total.
Iran's relations with Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt have been improving recently and military exercises with countries like India and Pakistan have raised some alarm for the Israelis. The strengthening strategic relations between Iran and Russia, China and Indonesia, are also a cause of concern for Iran's foes. Large-scale production of lithium would only deepen the ties between Iran and China further and bolster the non-aligned alliance that both Moscow and Beijing are trying to build in competition with the “unipolar” world led by the US.
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