TEHRAN - Head of Tehran Iron and Steel Traders Union says the country’s domestic steel consumption is expected to reach 17 million tons in the current Iranian year (ends on March 19), and considering the production plans there will be a 10 million-ton surplus this year, IRNA reported.

“Today, our country has reached a position in terms of steel production that, in addition to meeting the needs of the domestic market, can also export to target markets,” Hamidreza Rastegar told IRNA on Saturday.

Earlier this week, Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) announced that based on the latest report released by the World Steel Association (WSA) Iran’s crude steel output has increased 46.7 percent in January while the global average growth rate stood at 2.1 percent.

Based on the WSA data, Iran produced 2.895 million tons of crude steel, 46.7 percent more than last January’s 1.971 million tons.

Iran’s crude steel production increased by 30 percent in 2019 while the average global growth in this sector stood at 3.5 percent, according to the WSA’s previous report.

Based on the report, Iran produced 31.9 million tons of the mentioned commodity during 2019 compared to its previous year’s nearly 24 million tons.

Iran which stood at the 13th place in 2017 could lag behind three major steel producers in the world, namely Italy, Taiwan, and Ukraine to stand at the 10th place in 2018, despite the re-imposition of sanctions by the U.S.

In early May 2019, Washington imposed new sanctions on Iran's metals and minerals sectors in an attempt to [as the U.S. president Trump put it] “choke off the country’s largest non-petroleum related sources of export revenue".

EF/MA