Iran is becoming a quarry-rich country with good potential in the construction quarring sector, and for this reason, it is important that mining in the country’s economic growth needs more in this sector and solving the problems of the advancement of stones. The land of Iran has a high potential of all kinds of building stones due to the variety of geological occurrences in it and also the relative bareness of different stones due to the small forest and soil cover. The available studies show that Iran ranks second among stone quarries.
One of the God-given advantages of the stone industry in Iran is the diversity of its quarries. While in other countries like Brazil and India there is only granite quarry and in Italy there is only marble quarry; But in Iran, there are all kinds of decorative stone quarries with rich reserves. These stones include granite, marble, porcelain, crystal, travertine and marble, which also have a high variety of colors. Diversity in decorative stone quarries is important because the attention and taste of people and society change at different times and from time to time interests tend towards a certain stone. Obviously, by having different quarries, the response to the market will be accelerated and a specific type of stone will not be imposed on the customer due to the lack of variety in the product of the quarries. Iran ranks first in the world in terms of beauty and diversity in colored stones. There are very high-quality quarries in the country, which are unique to some extent in the world.
Iran’s building stone reserves have been estimated at eight billion tons, of which 2.3 billion tons are definite reserves and the rest are probable reserves, of which 59% are granite, 27% marble, 10% granite, 3% travertine and about 1%. The percentage of marble has been detected. Therefore, Iran is among the 10 major countries that have reserves of building stones, and with its annual mass production, it has 10% of the world’s production. to be the largest stone producers in the world.
From the last 30 years until now, foreign countries have made great progress in the field of building stone, and during this time, their attention has been directed towards Iran’s building stone. These stones include all soft and hard building stones (soft stones include all stones that have a carbonate composition, such as marble, travertine, marble stones, and hard stones include granite).
The construction stone mining industry has been established in Iran since 1331; But in practice, no action had been taken to improve the extraction method before 1366. In 1366, the first diamond wire cutting machine was built and used by one of the companies affiliated to the then Ministry of Quarries and Metals. Little by little, attention was paid to the new technology of stone cutting and newer sub and polishing machines. Currently, the lack of proper and coordinated planning between the construction sector, quarrying industries and stone quarries has caused a shortage and stagnation in the stone industry. More than 60% of this God-given blessing is lost in the form of carcasses in quarries and stone-cutting factories, regardless of the fact that these reserves took millions of years to form and we are the trustees of future generations.
Currently, a significant amount of stones extracted in the country’s quarries is turned into scrap and waste stone, which cannot be transported to construction stone processing factories. Due to worn-out devices and non-optimal construction stone mining machinery and lack of specialized machinery, a significant amount of extracted stone is turned into scrap and low-grade stones. Building stone is of low quality in terms of its quality and extraction, and this has created problems for production units that intend to export. According to international standards, 41% of raw stone becomes waste during extraction and processing, which is much higher in Iran, while the cost price of building stone in Iran is higher for Iranian producers than competing countries, and this issue reduces exports. And it has resulted in the strength of competition with foreign competitors. In the past, Italy, Spain, and China were Iran’s competitors in the field of building stone production in the world, and now India, Turkey, and Brazil have also joined Iran’s competitors in stone production, while none of the mentioned countries have the variety of Iran’s building stones.
With so many quarries and natural resources, Iran has a small share of the world market of mineral exports and has not been able to succeed in mining and processing. Iran has about one percent of the earth’s area. Considering the ancient civilization of this region, having valuable and long records in various scientific fields and having reserves and divine blessings, it is reasonable to expect that at least one percent of the world’s mineral exports will be allocated to Iran by extracting from the existing resources; But due to many reasons, the situation is different and unfortunately, Iran’s share of world trade including crude oil exports is only about half percent, and if the revenues from oil exports are deducted from the country’s total exports, the amount of non-oil exports is only about one-tenth percent of world trade. Forms. This statistic shows the need to review the existing mining policies.
If the slogan of escaping single-product exports is to be realized, it is necessary to know the potential possibilities other than oil. In this regard, the huge known mineral reserves and the existing potentials of this sector, which, if identified and explored, can be considered among the largest mineral countries in the world, are of particular importance. Among these, the production of building stones has a special importance and status, which God Almighty has blessed us with in various forms and forms with high reserves, which, if we want, we can prepare a large amount for export in addition to meeting domestic needs. For this purpose, you must first identify your resources well and then prepare them with accurate exploitation and processing in accordance with the demand of the sales market and proceed with marketing and sales with honesty and tact.
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