Iran’s six-month steel exports climb 3%: Report
A new report showed that Iran’s exports of various steel products have increased slightly between March and September this year to top 3.4 million tons.
The report by IRNA said 11 major steel mills across Iran had exported a total of 3,488,867 tons of ingots and other steel products in the six-month period starting from late March when the current Iranian year started.
The report said the biggest increase in exports in the period was recorded in Bonab Steel Complex, located in northwest Iran, as the mill exported a total of 21,190 tons of iron rods.
Khouzestan Steel Company (KSC), one of the largest and oldest steel mills in Iran located northwest of the country, came last in the ranking, with 16 percent decrease in exports as it shipped a total of 1,001,378 tons of steel products to other countries, said the report.
However, the KSC was the top exporter in the period with 28.7 percent of all exports, followed by Mobarakeh Steel at 21.5 and Esfahan Steel Company (ESCO) at 16.2.
The report said Iran Alloy Steel, located in the eastern Yazd Province, marked the largest increase in exports among the mills in the last month of the period studied, adding that the factory exported nearly 10,000 tons of iron rods in the month spanning August and September, an increase of 168 percent compared to the similar period last year.
However, Khorasan Steel Company, located northeast of Iran, reported the lowest amount of exports in the same month with only 129 tons, a 99-percent decline compared to the last year.
Iran has maintained its place among the 10 leading producers of steel products in the world despite US sanctions that have specifically targeted the country’s metal sector.
Official data suggest Iran’s annual steel output hit a record of 35 million tons in the year ending March 2019 while exports stood at around seven million tons.