TEHRAN- Iran produced 11.913 million tons of iron ore concentrate during the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-June 20), which was two percent lower than the figure of the same period of time in the past year, IRNA reported.

Also, the monthly iron ore concentrate output during the third month of this year has fallen four percent to 3.955 million tons on an annual basis.

Iran’s iron ore concentrate production capacity has increased by five million tons to reach 62 million tons following the inauguration of the country’s biggest concentrate unit in northeastern Khorasan Razavi Province on June 11.

The mentioned production unit was inaugurated by President Hassan Rouhani via video conference.

Speaking in the inaugural ceremony of the mentioned unit, Acting Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Hossein Modares Khiabani said the project will be completed in two phases, each of which will add 2.5 million tons to the country’s iron ore concentrate production capacity.

As announced by the ministry, Iran produced 47.306 million tons of iron ore concentrate in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19), registering a four-percent rise compared to its preceding year.

The country extracted 64.274 million tons of iron ore during the past calendar year.

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 extract 160 million tons of iron ore concentrate.

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 last September.

The duty is aimed at encouraging the production of more processed minerals such as pellets and concentrate instead of selling the raw minerals.

MA/MA