TEHRAN – Iranian industry, mining and trade minister said on Monday that the country holds a 62-percent share of the Middle East’s total crude steel production and it is planning to further increase this share, Shata reported.

Reza Rahmani made the remarks in the opening ceremony of a sponge iron production plant with an annual production capacity of 1.5 million tons in Baft County in Kerman Province, southeastern Iran.

According to the official, Iran has reached a balanced steel production chain in which all stages of production including engineering, implementation, fabrication and operation are being executed by Iranian experts and with domestic knowledge and technology.

Baft Steel mill was officially inaugurated by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday, in a bid to further raise the country’s steel production capacity and tap into its vast reserves of metals and minerals.

Speaking in the opening ceremony, Rahmani noted that the growth in the world’s steel production was about 3.5 percent last year, while the figure reached 6.5 percent for Iran.

Iran's steel production has been growing well over the past few years and the country rose from 13th to 10th place in the list of the world’s top steel producers in World Steel Association (WSA)’s latest ranking, he said.

Mentioning the Kerman Province’s great potential for mining, Rahmani noted that so far, more than 20,000 square kilometers of mineral exploration has been carried out in Kerman Province, with another 20,000 square kilometers on the agenda this year.

He finally called on domestic and foreign companies active in this area to take Iran’s mining sector into serious consideration for their future investments.

In late January, WSA announced that Iran ranked 10th among crude steel producers in the world in 2018 with 25 million tons of production.

Iran has pushed aside Italy, Taiwan and Ukraine to become the 10th biggest producer of crude steel in the world for the year 2018.

The WSA has put the global crude steel production for the year 2018 at 1.808 billion tons, which shows a 4.6 percent increase compared to 2017.

According to the report, Iran’s crude steel industry has remained in good shape despite the U.S. sanctions.

Iran’s share of global crude steel production was estimated at 1.38 percent for the year 2018.

EF/MA