Iranian steel mills produced 22.5 million tons of crude steel during January-November, up 17.3% compared with last year’s corresponding period, according to the latest report released by World Steel Association.
Iran’s November steel output grew 2.5% year-on-year to hit 2 million tons, the Brussels-based international trade body for the iron and steel industry added.
Iran has been ranked the world’s 11th biggest producer of steel during the period under Worldsteel's review. The country is placed between Italy (10th) with 22.81 million tons and Taiwan (12th) with 21.08 million tons.
The world’s 64 steelmakers produced a total of 1.64 billion tons of steel over the 11 months, up 4.7% YOY.
Global steel output stood at 148.61 million tons in November, indicating a 5.8% increase YOY.
China was the world’s largest with 857.37 million tons of steel output, up 6.7% YOY. Chinese steel production hit 77.62 million tons in November to rise 10.8% YOY.
China was followed by India with 96.92 million tons, Japan with 95.86 million tons, the United States with 79.15 million tons, South Korea with 66.29 million tons, Russia with 65.81 million tons, Germany with 38.96 million tons and Turkey with 34.43 million tons.
Iran’s crude steel output stood at 21.23 million tons in 2017, according to Worldsteel, 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 2.3% year-on-year to 6.69 million tons in November.
Production for the 10 months grew 10.9% year-on-year to 76.14 million tons.
Iran was the second biggest producer with 2.05 million tons of DRI production in November and 22.64 during the first 11 months of 2018.
India, Iran's primary rival in DRI output, increased its 10-month production by 2.9% YOY to 27.7 million tons.
The largest increase was in Argentina where output increased 34.6% YOY to 1.46 million tons.
Iran aims to become the world’s sixth largest steel producer as per the 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 just 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 reach its steelmaking expansion target.
