Column: Trump 2.0 won’t reverse Biden’s critical minerals push
Donald Trump has described the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a "green scam" and vowed to repeal it after he returns to the White House in January.
Over reliance on Iran’s oil sector have hurt mining, says Mehdi Karbasian, managing director of a group pushing for mine development in the country.
“During the past decades, due to the huge investments made in the oil industry. The foundation of the Iranian economy was based on this industry and the government paid less attention to making big investments in other sectors,” said Karbasian last month. He heads the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization.
Karbasian says the mining industry suffers from a variety of ills, such as low railway transportation capacity, low volume of facilities, high interest rates, lack of specialists in extraction and processing. But if the sector gets fixed, the mining sector can help shift Iran’s reliance away from oil.
“In my opinion, the mines and mining industry sector in competing with the oil industry can boost the economy and be even a substitute for oil.”
The opportunity is there. Iran is ranked among 15 major mineral-rich countries with potential reserves worth $770 billion. As of 2011, Iran had the world’s 9th largest reserves of copper at 32.5 million tons. Still, mining contributes just 0.6 per cent to GDP.
Some Japanese steel firms have entered the country. PressTV reports that executives of Kobe Steel Ltd, Japan’s fourth-biggest steelmaker, and the State-run Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp (JOGMEC) met officials in Tehran last month and discussed cooperation in Iran’s mine and mining industries sector.
While sanctions were imposed, Karbasian singled out lack of equipment and machinery as being particularly crippling.
“In fact, one of the most important problems in the way of the mining sector in recent years has been non-application of modern equipment and advanced technologies while old and second-hand machineries are being used in many of the mines some of which have been used in other countries for over 50 years.”
5 Comments
Art Easian
The minerals are worthless until a positive feasibility study. Who writes your stuff?
Mark Harder
Wow. $770 Billion is a lot of moolah. Iran is smart to develop sectors of its economy besides oil/gas. They’d be even smarter if they developed value-added industries in addition to mere exploitation and export.
The coincidence between these revelations and the US-Iran agreement is certainly thought-provoking. Does relief from the sanctions now enable these extraction activities? What about the opportunities are presented to outside interests that might be looking to Iran for revenues?
LAXMI
Where do you get the basic information on the Mineral wealth of Iran which is reasonably reliable??
Apple
And there is $150 billion worth of gold to be mined and discovered in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. Probably more. Ontario and Quebec probably have as much mineral potential as any where in the world. where is the rush ?
Abdul
Yes,no doubt Iran has very big deposits of iron ore,chromite,manganese and copper.This sector is very potential for the ferrous industries and they can boost steel,copper and electronic industries to meet the domestic demand of raw material.