The Iranian government claims it has discovered a massive deposit of lithium, potentially holding 8.5 million tons of the rare element.
Mohammad Hadi Ahmadi, an official at Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade, announced the discovery on Iranian state television. He added that this was the first lithium deposit found in the mountainous Hamedan province in the west of Iran.
If the 8.5 million-ton estimate is accurate, this means Iran now holds the second-largest lithium reserve in the world. It will be the largest deposit outside of South America, second only to a 9.2 million-ton deposit in Chile. With global lithium reserves estimated at 89 million tons, Iran may now possess almost one tenth of the world’s lithium supply.