Steel production in Iran increased by 5%

Steel production in Iran increased by five percent in the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20 to July 21) compared to the same period last year.

In the four months of the current Iranian year, 7.257 million tons of steel products were produced, in the first four months of last year - 6.93 million tons.

As previously reported, steel production in the country also increased in the first four months of this year.

Iranian steelmakers produced 9.483 million tonnes of crude steel in the four months of this year, up nine percent from the 8.683 million tonnes produced in the same period last year.

Iran's crude steel production increased 30 percent in 2019, while the sector's average global growth was 3.5 percent, according to a report by the World Steel Association (WSA).

According to the WSA report, in 2019 Iran produced 31.9 million tons of the specified product, while in 2018 this figure was 24 million tons.

Iran became the 10th largest steel producer in the world in 2018, according to the World Steel Association.

Iran, ranked 13th in 2017 and lagging behind the world's three largest steel producers, namely Italy, Taiwan and Ukraine, managed to rank 10th in 2018 despite re-imposing U.S. sanctions.

Last month, a board member of the Iranian Steel Producers Association (ISPA) told IRNA that Iran has the capacity to export 15 million tons of steel a year.

Stating that the country's annual steel production reached 30 million tons, Reza Shahrestani said that of this figure, 15 million tons could be exported and bring the country $ 7 billion in revenue.

“Iran is now one of the ten largest steel producers in the world, and in order to prove our capabilities in this regard, we must have a strong presence in international markets,” he stressed.

Iran's exports of steel products in the last Iranian calendar year (ended March 19) rose 27 percent over the previous year.

The largest steel producers last year managed to export about 7.33 million tons of products.

According to data released by the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade, the country's ten largest companies produced more than 20.226 million tonnes of steel ingots during the period, up five percent from last year.

These companies also produced nearly 13.38 million tonnes of other steel products last year, up six percent from the previous year.

In an effort to prevent the export of unprocessed minerals,