Power outages in Khorasan Razavi Province have reduced cement output and doubled prices, deputy marketing and sales manager at Sharq Cement Company said.
“Each ton of this major building material was traded around $17 before outages start, but now that factories have to limit their activities, the same amount of cement is sold at around $30,” Touraj Sadeqi was also quoted as saying by ISNA.
Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir) can only meet as little as 25% of cement plants’ electricity demand in summer that explains the market turmoil, he added.
Sadeqi said the imposition of restrictions on industries has reduced production capacity by a massive 70%.
As long as factories are not provided with sufficient power, prices will keep rising and civil development projects, including freeway construction projects, will be brought to an abrupt halt and workers are likely to become redundant.
To offset power shortage that has exceeded 10 gigawatts, Tavanir has forced cement and steel factories to operate at 30% of their capacity during the day and at 100% of their capacity from 12:00 midnight to 8:00 a.m.
Iran was ranked the world’s seventh biggest producer of cement in 2020 by the United States Geological Survey, with an output of 60 million tons.
Iran was the world’s eighth biggest cement producer in 2018 with 58 million tons, while Turkey was the seventh biggest producer with 72.5 million tons.
However, as Turkey’s production declined in 2019, Iran occupied the seventh place, according to the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization.
Iran's cement production capacity is 85 million tons, of which 65 million tons are consumed domestically.
