Iran’s sole known titanium deposit is to be turned into a working mine by March next year, according to local reports.
The development comes hot on the heels of Iran’s discovery of what is believed to be the Middle East’s largest known porphyry copper deposit and the February announcement of a giant lithium reserve in the country, bne Intellinews wrote.
The titanium mine and associated processing facility in the vicinity of Kahnuj in Iran’s southeastern Kerman Province — also the location of the copper discovery — will come on stream following three decades in which efforts to achieve the launch always foundered, according to Moslem Moravveji, a Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade (MIMT) provincial official, Tasnim News Agency reported on June 27.
The reserve is thought to contain 150-400 million tons of titanium, a silvery grey-white lustrous metal. The extraction and processing enterprise might produce 130,000 tons of titanium concentrate as well as 70,000 tons of slag annually.
Morraveji reportedly made the launch announcement in a briefing with local reporters about latest efforts in Kerman to extract copper, chromite, magnesium, gold and other mineral resources.
MIMT and state-owned Iranian Mines & Mining Industries Development & Renovation Organisation (IMIDRO) agreed in 2019 to award the project to develop a Kahnuj titanium mine to a private investor. However, no name of a private investor has been made public and it is likely that the investor is linked with the state in some guise. Due to Western sanctions that hinder investment projects, many such projects are being funded by various quasi-governmental groups and entities.
The two most useful properties of titanium are said to be corrosion resistance and its strength-to-density ratio, the highest of any metallic element. Unalloyed, titanium is as strong as some steels but less dense. The metal can be alloyed with iron, aluminum, vanadium and molybdenum to produce strong lightweight alloys for aerospace products, including jet engines, missiles and spacecraft. The most common titanium compound, titanium dioxide, is used as a photocatalyst and in the manufacture of white pigments.
Throughout the Cold War period, titanium was listed as a strategic material by the US. A large stockpile of a porous form of the pure metal, titanium sponge, was maintained by the Defense National Stockpile Center, until it was dispersed in the 2000s.
As of 2021, the four leading producers of titanium sponge were China (52%), Japan (24%), Russia (16%) and Kazakhstan (7%), according to the United States Geological Survey.
Lithium and copper have a growing reputation as essential metals needed for technology, such as lithium batteries and electronics in electric vehicles (EVs), that is driving the green energy revolution.
Around 7% of global mineral reserves are found in Iran, making it one of the most important mineral producers in the world. However, the country, partly because of the sanctions burden it endures, lacks the required technology to exploit the resources to the extent it would otherwise aim for.
Iran possesses major reserves of zinc, copper, salt, coal, iron ore, uranium, lead, gold, bauxite (for aluminum), molybdenum, antimony, sulfur, sand and gravel.
Discovery of Largest Copper Deposit in Middle East
Earlier in June, official media in Iran reported the discovery of what is thought to be the largest known porphyry copper deposit in the Middle East.
The resource, said to contain around 3 billion tons of copper ore would, if verified, quickly move on to the radar of companies driving the transition to green energy, as 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, bne Intellinews wrote.
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 Hassanzadeh, deputy for economic affairs of Kerman Governorate, said, noting that Iran is located in a very favorable 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 at more than a billion tons of copper.
The new deposit was mapped with the drilling of 106 exploratory boreholes with a length of 93,000 meters. Plans are in place for a second exploration phase that will drill 60 boreholes in an area of around 80,000 sqm. This could conceivably boost the porphyry copper estimate to 4 billion tons 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 Company (NICICO) is the third largest company on the Tehran Stock Exchange.
Behrouz Rahmati, a NICICO executive, noted that Iran's mineral reserves stood at 57 billion tons, ranking the country as one of the top 10 mineral-rich nations in the world.
He said copper, the third most consumed metal in the world, has already brought Iran $10 billion 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 tons a year, according to Rio. That’s enough to meet demands in the making of around six million electric vehicles or 60 of the biggest wind farms.
Giant Lithium Deposit Promises to Be a Game-Changer
Iran’s neighbors 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, bne IntelliNews wrote, citing a report published by Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen 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 Hamedan Province is thought to be the second largest in the world after a deposit in Chile, containing an estimated 8.5 million tons of lithium. That would give Iran control of 10% of the world's known lithium reserves of 89 million tones. 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 aluminum), molybdenum, antimony and sulfur.
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 $700 billion, with value-added estimated at $4 trillion, according to Iranian reports.
Iran announced that its lithium reserves rank the fourth-largest in the world in April. It plans to start production of lithium within two years, Tasnim News Agency 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 9.2 million tons of lithium, or 58% of the global reserves.
China is currently the world's largest market for lithium batteries as EV sales are soaring; 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 UAE, 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 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.
