YEREVAN.- We’re back from the weekend with the final leg of our “Molybdenum week” for Monday and Tuesday. On the fourth day, the comment was shared by Stefan Ioannou, mining analyst at Haywood Securities investment and consulting company based in Vancouver.

We’re addressing a new topic – correlation of influence of primary and by-product molybdenum upon the market.

Current global by-product molybdenum production, Ioannou said, is only sufficient to satisfy approximately 50% of global demand (a similar estimate was voiced on the second day of our “week”). Higher cost “primary” production is required to fulfill the remaining 50%, he added.

Global molybdenum demand, he noted, is growing at approximately 5% per year (~25 million lbs per year). “Hence, molybdenum pricing will be dictated, in part, by the higher costs generally associated with (new) primary production,” he explained.

Today, molybdenum in Armenia is entirely mined as a by-product of copper. Annual output of molybdenum concentrate in Armenia approximately equals to 8.5 thousand metric tons.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, world molybdenum extraction in 2010 totaled 234 thousand tons (in molybdenum content). Armenia has been accountable for 1.8% of global extraction.