The government has decided to build new steel plants near the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea with a total capacity of 10 million tons a year, a deputy minister of industry, mine, and trade said
Mehdi Karbasian pointed to the steel plants' basic need for water and announced that the country will build new facilities near the port city of Bandar Abbas and other coastal regions in the country's south.
Karbasian, who is also the head of Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), added that the government has made the new decision in the wake of the water crisis in the country.
The decades-long water crisis in Iran has put pressure on the country's steel manufacturing companies.
More than 128 cubic meters of water is required to produce one ton of steel, and based on the country's target to annually produce 55 million tons of steel by the end of the Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (March 2012-March 2016), more than 7 billion cubic meters of water will be needed by 2016, which is more than 8% of the total amount of water annually used in farming.
The Rouhani administration says the previous administration did not take water considerations in many of the steel production projects they green-lighted, adding that the ministry of mine, industry, and trades will revise the location of those projects.
Many of the current steel manufacturing plants have faced major challenges in the wake of nationwide water crisis. The recent running dry of the Zayanderud River in the central city of Isfahan, for instance, has caused serious concerns regarding the activity of the steel companies Zob-e Ahan and Foolad-e Mobarake, which together used to consume 7% of the rivers water.
