Iranian steel mills produced a total of 20.6 million tons of crude steel during the first 10 months of 2018, up 19% compared with last year’s corresponding period, the latest report of World Steel Association showed.
Iran’s October steel output grew 10.6% year-on-year to hit 2.07 million tons, the Brussels-based international trade body for the iron and steel industry added.
Iran has been ranked the world’s 11th biggest steel producer during the period under Worldsteel's review. The country is placed between Italy (10th) with 20.61 million tons and Taiwan (12th) with 19.24 million tons.
Iran’s October steel output grew 10.6% year-on-year to hit 2.07 million tons
The world’s 64 steelmakers produced a total of 1.5 billion tons of steel over the 10 months, up 4.7% YOY.
Global steel output stood at 156.58 million tons in October, indicating a 5.8% increase YOY.
China was the world’s largest with 782.45 million tons of steel output, up 6.4% YOY. Chinese steel production hit 82.55 million tons in October to rise 9.1% YOY.
China was followed by India with 88.43 million tons, Japan with 87.18 million tons, the United States with 71.74 million tons, South Korea with 60.36 million tons, Russia with 60.29 million tons, Germany with 35.55 million tons and Turkey with 31.28 million tons.
Iran’s crude steel output stood at 21.23 million tons in 2017, Worldsteel announced, up 21.4% YOY.
Crude steel is defined as steel in its first solid (or usable) form: ingots, semi-finished products (billets, blooms and slabs). This is not to be confused with liquid steel, which is steel poured.
The report shows global direct-reduced iron output increased 6.9% year-on-year to 6.87 million tons in October.
Production for the 10 months grew 11.8% year-on-year to 69.43 million tons.
Iran was the second biggest producer with 2.11 million tons of DRI production in October and 20.59 million tons during the first 10 months of 2018.
India, Iran's primary rival in DRI output, increased its 10-month production by 4.4% YOY to 25.46 million tons.
The largest increase was in Argentina where output increased 39.3% YOY to 1.31 million tons.
Iran aims to become the world’s sixth largest steel producer as per its 20-Year Vision Plan, which targets annual production capacity expansion to 55 million tons and 20-25 million tons of exports per year by 2025. Iranian steel mills have so far realized over 30 million tons of the capacity target.
The country has been working to increase its iron ore processing capacity, including both DRI and hot-briquetted iron production to feed its steelmaking expansion target.
