Iran maintained its position as the world’s 14th largest crude steel producer by manufacturing 16.1 million tons of the industrial material in 2015, despite a 200,000-ton drop compared to a year before, according to the latest report by the World Steel Association.
With 803.8 million tons, China singlehandedly accounted for about half of the world’s total steel output and topped the chart. It was followed by Japan, India, the United States, Russia, South Korea, Germany, Brazil, Turkey, Ukraine, Italy, Taiwan and Mexico.
Furthermore, Iran’s largest holding company active in the mining sector, the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization was rated by WSA as the world’s 27th major producer of crude steel as its subsidiary companies manufactured 14.10 million tons of steel in 2015.
IMIDRO stood one rank higher than the Chinese Rizhao Steel and one step lower than the Steel Authority of India. ArcelorMittal, with an annual output of 97.14 million tons, was the world’s largest producer.
“Iran is the world’s largest direct reduced iron producer with a production capacity of 11 million tons per year,” says Bahram Sobhani, CEO of Mobarakeh Steel Company.
Iran overtook India to become the largest producer of direct reduced iron in March as it put out 1.29 million tons, making India and Saudi Arabia the second and third largest DRI producing nations respectively, preliminary data by WSA showed.
DRI, also known as sponge iron, is produced by direct reduction of iron ore using a reducing gas made from natural gas or coal. It is currently used as an energy-efficient feedstock for specialty steel manufacturers that used to rely upon scrap metal.
Mehdi Karbasian, deputy minister of industries, mining and trade, said the country has also had an outstanding performance on the export front.
“Iranian steelmakers exported a record high of more than 4.1 million tons of steel products valued at about $7 billion in the last Iranian year (March 2015-16), which shows an over 4% rise compared to the previous year,” he said.
Iran aims to become the world’s sixth largest steel manufacturer as stipulated in the 20-Year National Vision Plan (2005-25), which envisions production of 55 million tons of crude steel per year.
Realizing the ambitious figure requires the domestic mining sector to annually produce 58 million tons of DRI, 88 million tons of pellets and 53.5 million tons of iron ore concentrate.
