Iran’s steel exports were at 10mn mt in 2019. The US has sanctions on steel exports from Iran in place, but, on Tuesday, Iran’s Steel Comprehensive Plan reported total production to be at 55mn mt, with 35mn mt consumed domestically and the remaining 20mn mt for exports. Iran’s total steel exports in 2018 were 9mn mt.
The comprehensive plan was released at the ongoing 10th Iranian Steel & Iron Ore Market Conference.
The event is held annually to take stock of developments in Iran’s steel industry and to survey challenges and opportunities facing the sector.
Recent political developments post the killing of Iranian general Qassim Solemani by the US in Iraq, are expected to impact Iranian exports. The US has imposed several sanctions, apart from steel, on the Iranian economy.
The Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organisation’s latest report on the completion of under-construction steel production units shows a total of 19.1mn mt will be added to Iran’s annual steel production capacity by the fiscal 2023-24.
Iran’s current steel production capacity stands at 35mn mt per year and steel mills are eying the aggregate output capacity will reach 54.1 million tons by March 2024.
Imidro plans to cover 300,000 sqkm kilometers of the country’s explorable land for mineral explorations by the end of the current fiscal year (March 19, 2020), and will have invested $3.9bn in Iran’s mining sector by the end of the current year.
Turkey, which is the largest producer of rebar, imported 141,300 tonnes of rebar from Iran in the first 11 months of 2019, up sharply from 30,700 tonnes in the same period of 2018.
Major steel producers in Iran claimed exports 5.2mn mt of finished and semi-finished steel in the first nine months of the current Iranian year (ending Dec 21) , which rose by 19pc y-o-y.