HEKİMHAN MINING CO. INC.

Hekimhan Madencilik was set up in early 2007 to exploit iron ore deposits in Hekimhan township in the province of Malatya. Production at the mine began the same year.

Turkey’s biggest and most importance deposits of manganese iron ore

Although deposits of iron ore were identified near the village of Deveci in 1936 exploitation did not get under way until two decades later. The reserves were nationalized in 1978  and underwent privatization in 2007, at which time Hekimhan Madencilik acquired the exploitation and exploration rights in the area until 2040 at a cost of USD 21.5 million.

Turkey’s biggest and most important deposits of manganese iron ore, Hekimhan is also the home of the country’s second biggest proven reserves of iron ore. Two types of ore have been identified here:

·       Limonite consisting of 48-52% iron and 4.5% manganese

·       Siderite consisting of 38-40% iron and 3.5% manganese.

The open-pit (opencast) method is used to exploit the iron ore reserves, which are put at more than 40 million tons of siderite and about 200,000 tons of limonite.

Hekimhan iron ore has been used for years to meet the needs of Turkey’s three biggest steelmakers: Erdemir, İsdemir, and Kardemir. It is regarded as particularly valuable because of its high manganese content.

There is considerable scope for additional exploitation and exploration in the area and projects and feasibility studies have been launched both to increase the volume of reserves and to improve ore quality.

Hekimhan Madencilik has an annual production capacity of 1 million tons.