A total of 72 tons of gold reserves have been discovered in Iran over the past six years to increase the country’s total reserves of the precious metal to 201 tons, the news portal of the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization reported.
More gold reserves, estimated at 100 tons, are expected to be confirmed by March 2042 under IMIDRO’s development plans.
Gold exploration projects are underway at 107 gold fields stretching over 660,000 kilometers in 30 provinces; so far, 80% of these projects have been completed.
Zarshouran: Mideast’s Richest Deposit
Zarshouran, located 35 kilometers from Takab in the northwestern province of West Azarbaijan, is Iran’s and the Middle East’s richest gold deposit. It holds 108 tons of proven reserves, in addition to 50 tons of silver.
Currently, about700 people are working in the mine.
“Optimizing the gold bar production process, upgrading and boosting the capacity of filtration process and establishing quality control units for each production stage are among the recent measures taken to boost the mine’s output,” Mohsen Naderi, the caretaker of Zarshouran Gold Mine and Mining Industries Development Company, said.
New Mine Inaugurated in Kurdestan Province
The Sari-Guni Gold Mine in the western Kurdestan Province of Iran was inaugurated by President Hassan Rouhani in August last year via videoconference.
The mine came on stream with 3 trillion rials ($12.5 million) of investment, and is said to have employed 350 people.
Speaking at the inaugural event, President Rouhani said Iran’s gold ingot output has registered a 14-fold jump in the past seven years.
“The government is willing to put extra investment and effort into boosting gold mining,” he added.
Former deputy industries minister, Dariush Esmaeili, who was also present in the inaugural ceremony, said Iran is ahead of schedule in gold production.
“Based on the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan [2017-2022], the domestic gold ingot production in the country was expected to reach 10 tons per year. However, since 2012, the rate has increased from 850 kg to 12 tons annually,” IRNA reported.
Esmaeili added that the world’s total gold mine reserves amount to 50,000 tons.
“Based on the explorations and estimations, Iran’s share can be increased to 400 tons,” he said.
New Mine in Isfahan to Produce 100 Kg of Gold p.a.
The Kouhdom Goldmine, located 110 kilometers northeast of the city of Ardestan in Isfahan Province, also came on stream last year according to the Iran Minerals Production and Supply Company.
In a statement, the company said a total of £7.65 million were invested into the development project of the reserve, which is expected to produce 100 kg of gold and 1,000 tons of copper oxide annually.
The new mine is expected to process 200 kilograms per year in the first phase and an adjacent processing and extraction factory will also be set up in the near future, Mining Global reported.
Kouhdom reportedly contains approximately 1.7 million tons of proven reserves of gold ore, the company announced.
The project is part of the development plans of Iran Minerals Production and Supply Company, which is a subsidiary of the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization, which were initiated in 2015.
