TEHRAN- Production of iron ore concentrate in Iran during the previous Iranian calendar year 1399 (ended on March 20) reached 49.714 million tons, registering a five-percent rise compared to the preceding year, IRNA reported.

According to the Industry, Mining and Trade Ministry data, of the mentioned figure 3.533 million tons were produced in the last month of the previous year (February 19-March 20).

As reported, the country’s major iron ore concentrate producers had managed to produce about 47.306 million tons of the mentioned product in the Iranian calendar year 1398.

Last year, major mining companies also produced 902,454 tons of granulated iron ore, to register a decrease of 54 percent compared to the preceding year (1,965,733 tons).

Iran had produced 24.6 million tons of iron ore concentrate during the first half of the previous Iranian calendar year (March 20-September 21, 2020), which was also four percent higher than the figure of the same period of time in the preceding year.

Also, the monthly iron ore concentrate output during the sixth month of that year had risen six percent on an annual basis.

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.

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 2019.

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

EF/MA