Iranian private sector steelmakers produced over 1.8 million tons of crude steel during the first half of 2016, registering a whopping 92% rise compared to last year's corresponding period, according to the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization's director for planning and strategic supervision.
Amir Sabbagh added that the manufacturing figure also shows that the share of private sector steelmakers from total production rose to 20%. The fraction stood at 11% for last year's similar period.
Heavyweights of Iran's steel industry, including public and semi-public companies such as Mobarakeh, Khuzestan, Khorasan and Esfahan steel companies as well as Iran National Steel Industry Group, saw a 5% drop in their aggregate 7-million-ton output during the six-month period.
Iran's total crude steel output for the first half of 2016 reached 8.8 million tons, which indicate a 5.2% growth compared with last year's corresponding period.
This improves Iran's previous ranking by one notch to become the world's 12th largest producer of the industrial material so far this year, between Italy (11th) with 12.1 million tons and Mexico (13th) with 8.7 million tons of crude steel input, according to World Steel Association data.
Iran's rising crude steel production comes against the backdrop of a global declining trend. The world's 66 steelmaking countries produced an aggregate of 794.8 million tons of steel, registering a 1.9% decrease compared with the first half of 2015.
China, despite cutbacks in its steel production capacity, remained the world's largest producer of crude steel with a 399-million output, followed by Japan, India, Russia, South Korea, Germany, Brazil and Italy.
Iran's June output of crude steel amounted to 1.59 million tons, recording an 11% rise compared to the same month of 2015.
Iran's crude steel output stood at 16.1 million tons in 2015.
The country aims to become the world's sixth largest steel producer as per its 20-Year National Vision Plan (2005-25), which stipulates the production of 55 million tons of crude steel per year.
