Iran’s Shadegan Steel Company started hot commissioning of a new direct reduced iron module on Sunday, the country’s state mines and metals holding company IMIDRO said on Thursday.
“Shadegan plans to complete five other modules at various locations in Iran by March 2018,” IMIDRO Chairman Mehdi Karbasian said in a statement on the holding company’s website.
The steel company is currently producing 800,000 tons/year of DRI or sponge iron, S&P Global Platts reported.
The company is also building an electric arc furnace-based steelmaking plant that is slated for completion by May 2018, an IMIDRO source said. The project’s capacity will be 4 million tons/year after the completion of the second phase.
That plant is located in Iran’s southwest, close to Iraq, and will be able to meet some of Iraq’s future crude steel demand.
The new projects will add a combined 4.8 million tons/year of sponge iron capacity to Iran’s current nominal capacity of 17.3 million tons/year by December.
Shadegan’s DRI module will use a domestic Iranian DR technology called PERED or Persian Reduction, invented and patented by MME Co., an Iranian engineering company registered in Germany.
This is the first DRI module to use the technology. Three of the projects under construction will also use PERED technology.
Shadegan Steel is owned 65% by Khouzestan Steel Company, Iran’s second biggest steel producer, and 45% by IMIDRO.
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