Ali Akbar Salehi, Director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), told ISNA that the country was seeking to reach self-sufficiency in uranium mining in the next 7-8 years.

"We have divided the country into several regions and in each one we are doing some research," Salehi said. "But most of our exploration activities are being conducted in the central and southern parts of the country."

AEOI officials estimate sufficiently large quantities of uranium ore to be present at the existing mines in the Yazd and the Bandar Abbas regions.

The Saghand uranium ore deposit in Yazd has reserves estimated at 1.5 million tons of low-grade uranium oxide, while the site at Bandar Abbas could produce annually up to 21 tons of milled uranium, or yellowcake, according to AEOI.

"More activities are being carried out at the Saghand mine... and we are pursuing both uranium exploration and extraction in the Bandar Abbas mine which is the country's only yellowcake producer and we have good results so far," Salehi said.

Self-efficiency in uranium production is important for Iran as the country is defiantly pursuing its controversial nuclear program despite four sets of UN Security Council sanctions.

At present, the Islamic Republic has about 5,000 metric tons of confirmed national reserves of uranium.