TEHRAN- Production of iron ore concentrate in Iran has risen four percent during the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-August 22), as compared to the same period of time in the past year.

According to the data provided by Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), ten large iron ore concentrate producers of the country have produced 21.195 million tons of the product in the five-month period of this year, while the figure was 20.373 million tons in the same time span of the past year.

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.

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).

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.

MA/MA