TEHRAN- Production of the copper anode in Iran has risen 16 percent during the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-November 20), from the same period of time in the previous year.

As reported, 235,379 tons of the product has been produced in the eight-month period of this year.

Copper anode production stood at 30,287 tons in the eight month of the present year, rising 44 percent from the output in the same month of the previous year.

In early May, four development projects worth 40 trillion rials (about $952.3 million) were inaugurated in the copper sector of Kerman Province in the southeast of Iran.

President Hassan Rouhani put the projects into operation through video conference.

The projects inaugurated in Khatoon Abad Copper Complex included increasing the capacity of copper smelting in the complex, building a copper concentrate storage, construction of a sulfuric acid production plant, and an oxygen supplying unit. 

By putting the first project into operation, the complex’s capacity for producing copper anode rises by 50 percent to 120,000 tons, and the country’s copper smelting capacity rose to 400,000 tons.

Iran has seen its copper exports doubled in the past Iranian calendar year despite a series of bitter sanctions imposed by the United States aimed at hampering the Islamic Republic’s trade of lucrative metals.

A senior official at Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), Iran’s largest metals and mining holding, has said that the value of exports for main copper products reached more than $1 billion over the past year.

MA/MA