TEHRAN (FNA)- Year-on-year comparisons show that Iran has registered a 25% rise in terms of exporting steel products in the first 10 months of the current local calendar year (from March 21, 2019 to Jan. 22, 2020).
Export statistics of large steel mills in Iran showed that the country’s exports of different steel products in the 10-month span between March 21, 2019 to January 22, 2020, has hiked by 25% in comparison with the corresponding period in a year ago.
In the same period, 5,884,130 tons of steel products were exported from the country, showing a 25 percent growth as compared to the same period of last year.
The statistical tables of Iranian Steel Producers Association (ISPA) indicate that 5,069,000 tons of steel ingot was exported from the country in the nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (from March 21 to Dec. 22), recording a 38 percent growth as compared to the last year’s corresponding period.
The ISPA put the steel ingot exported from the country in the nine months of the last Iranian calendar year (from March 21 to Dec. 22, 2018) at 3,675,000 tons.
Another statistic showed that total 2,728,000 tons of steel products were exported from the country in the first nine months of the current year, showing a 27 percent hike as compared to the same period of last year.
The Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade announced in December that the country’s steel sector has been making progress under US sanctions, adding that currently the country has an annual capacity of 35 million tons of steel production.
Deputy Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Jafar Serqini said that Iran has currently 35 million tonnes of steel production capacity.
Steel exports will exceed 11 million tonnes this year, up 30 percent from 8.5 million tons last year, local sources quoted him as saying. “This shows that Iran's steel industry is rapidly moving forward.”
According to Serqini, several steel units with an overall capacity of 10 million tons are currently being built with above 50 percent of physical progress, while another 10 million tons of capacity has been defined to be established.
“All these efforts are aimed at reaching the target of 55 million tons of steel in the 20-year vision plan,” he said.
For the past three to four years, steel production growth in Iran has always been higher than the global average, according to Serqini.
Iran’s industrial metals, specifically steel, are the latest target in the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign, but officials say the sector is unfazed and keeps growing.
Earlier in December, the US government launched the latest salvo in the campaign as it warned against exports of steel-making materials to Iran.
The US Department of State cautioned that those involved in transfers or exports to Iran of graphite electrodes and needle coke, which are essential materials for Iran's steel industry, were at risk of sanctions regardless of their nationality or location.
Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Reza Rahmani put the damper on Washington’s haughty grandstanding, saying Iranian producers had obtained the technology to make graphite electrodes.
“In the steel field, we identified the production of graphite electrodes as a chokehold and produced it domestically,” Rahmani said last week.
In the same period, Iran’s ministry of industry issued a report recounting that the country has posted 7% year-on-year increase in production of various steel products, including bars, rods, profiles, sheets and plates, while the country’s output of crude steel, including blooms, billets, and slabs, had grown by five percent.
It shows that production of crude steel, including blooms, billets, and slabs, had increased by five percent in the eight-month period ending on November 21 to reach a total of 17.424 million tons.
Iran has stated that the sanctions have failed to affect plans for increased output as the country seeks to improve its position as a major steel producer in the world.
Output of various steel products was down year-on-year over the summer months and before the government imposed a harsh tariff on exports of raw iron.
That allowed major steel mills in central and Southern Iran to increase production and think of better markets for exports.