(File photo)Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in this April 8, 2008 file photo. (Reuters photo)

TEHRAN, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Iranian nuclear chief said here Monday that Iran has extracted yellowcake domestically for industrial use in nuclear technology.

"Iran has transferred the first yellowcake consignment from Saghand uranium mine in the central Yazd Province to the uranium conversion facility (UFC) in Isfahan," Press TV quoted Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, as saying.

Also, since the implementation of nuclear deal in January 2016, Iran has imported around 400 tonnes of yellowcake.

Iran has sold its enriched uranium to a number of countries, including the United States, Salehi said at a ceremony to celebrate National Nuclear Technology Day.

Yellowcake is a type of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is a step in the processing of uranium after it has been mined but before fuel fabrication or uranium enrichment.

In February 2017, Saleh announced a Tehran-Astana deal to buy 950 tons of yellowcake from Kazakhstan, which is part of Iran's international nuclear deal known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

"The deal (on yellowcake) is expected to be implemented in three years," he said, as 650 tons of the yellowcake shipment will arrive in Tehran in two batches in two years and the remaining 300 tons will arrive in the third year.

The JCPOA is an international agreement reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015 between Iran, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States plus Germany) and the European Union.

Based on the agreement, Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear activities to a considerable degree in return for the lift of international sanctions.