In a report on Saturday, Iran's state news agency said salco, located in the southern tip of Fars province near the Persian Gulf city of lemerd, will produce 300000 tonnes of aluminium in its first phase.

One of the largest smelters in the Middle East has created 1200 direct jobs and plans to produce 1 million tonnes a year at full capacity, the report said.

Five Iranian banks have funded more than $1bn for the first phase of the project, and China Nonferrous Metals Industry Foreign Engineering and Construction Corporation (NFC) has been funding the project.

The project is funded by imidro and Ghadir investment, the largest holding companies in the mining and metals industry in Iran. Iranian social security organizations and pension funds related to the armed forces are the main shareholders of the company Compared with other metals, Iran lags behind in aluminum production. However, since fuel accounts for more than 25% of the cost of aluminum production, a large amount of energy can help the country make up for the losses suffered over the years.

Iran hopes to increase its annual production of aluminum to more than 800000 tons by March 2022, while attracting more than $11 billion in investment, bringing this figure to 1.5 million tons by 2025.

From late March to late August 2019, Iran's three major smelters, iralco, hormozal aluminum and almahdi Co., produced 103593 tons. (From CCMN)