YEREVAN.- Iron mineral resources in Armenia are estimated at 100,467 thousand tons, as of end-2011.

Head of the Mineral Resources Agency at the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia, Khachik Saponjyan, told Armenian News-NEWS.am that the estimate is shared by A, B, and C1 categories (termed as “measured” and “indicated” respectively by the USGS classification). 

Currently there are 2 active mining licenses held by Spice Steel Armenia CJSC (Abovyan deposit) and Fortune resources LLC (Hrazdan deposit). Spice Steel currently does additional exploration at Abovyan field and another iron ore deposit, Svarants, where it holds an exploration license.

Another exploration license is granted to Surart LLC for Bazum ore manifestation in the Lori region, northern Armenia which is in its early stage of exploration.