TEHRAN- Production of steel products in Iran reached 1.534 million tons in the first Iranian calendar month Farvardin (March 20-April 19), IRNA reported citing the data released by the country’s steel producers.

The released data show that the country’s steel products output has fallen eight percent in the first month of this year from that of the same month in the previous year, which was 1.668 million tons.

As previously announced, Iran’s export of steel products in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19) rose 27 percent compared to its preceding year.

The country’s major steel producers managed to export about 7.33 million tons of the products in the previous year.

According to the data released by the Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry, in the mentioned period over 20.226 million tons of steel ingots were produced by the country’s 10 major companies to register a five-percent rise year on year.

The mentioned companies also produced nearly 13.38 million tons of other steel products last year, six percent more than the preceding year.

As Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) has announced, Iran’s annual steel ingot production is planned to increase 3.2 million tons in the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 20.

The country has defined 16 development projects in the steel sector to boost the output of steel products by 17.3 million tons in five years.

These projects are for constructing production units each with the capacity of 600,000 tons, while some other projects have been also defined to set up some units with under 500,000-ton capacity that together with the 600,000-ton capacity units will add 19.1 million tons to the country’s annual steel products output.

In its latest report, the World Steel Association (WSA) has announced that Iran’s crude steel production increased by 30 percent in 2019 while the average global growth in this sector stood at 3.5 percent.

Based on the WSA report, Iran produced 31.9 million tons of the mentioned commodity during 2019 compared to the preceding year’s nearly 24 million tons.

In its outlook plan for the Iranian calendar year 1404 (2025-2026) Iran has envisaged production of 55 million tons of steel per annum, and to achieve this target the country requires to produce 160 million tons of iron ore concentrates. 

Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry has announced that production of iron ore concentrate in Iran reached 47.306 million tons in the previous Iranian calendar year, registering a four-percent rise compared to the preceding year.

The country has extracted 64.274 million tons of iron ore during the past year, according to the data released by Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization.

In a bid to prevent the exports of unprocessed minerals, creating more value-added and meeting the requirements of domestic producers for the raw materials, Iran has levied a 25-percent duty on the exports of raw minerals (especially iron ore) since September 23, 2019.

Industry Ministry believes that the duty is going to encourage the production of more processed minerals such as pellets and concentrate instead of selling the raw minerals.

MA/MA