Iran ranked 10th in the global steel output in the first quarter this year, says a report by the country’s state-run metals and mining conglomerate IMIDRO citing figures from the World Steel Association (worldsteel).
The report published Saturday by the official IRNA news agency said Iran’s steel output rose 10.7% in the first quarter against the quarter to March 2020 to 7.5 million metric tons.
It said the surge was slightly higher than a global output increase of 10% over the same period when total production reached 486.9 million tons.
China came first in the list of 64 major steel producing nations with 271 million tons of quarterly output, followed by India at 29.6 million tons and Japan at 23.7 million tons, said the report.
Iran came tenth in the table behind Brazil, showed the worldsteel figures, adding that the South American nation churned out 8.7 million tons, coming behind the United States, Russia, South Korea, Germany and Turkey.
The figures showed that steel production topped 2.6 million tons in Iran in March, again 10.7% higher against March 2020 but lower than a global average of 15.2% for a total production of 169.2 million tons reported that month.
Iran has seen an increased activity in metals and mining activity since 2018 when the United States imposed sanctions on the country’s oil exports.
Washington targeted Iran’s metals trade with similar sanctions in 2019 but the bans have hardly affected the output.
Iranian authorities say the country could become the seventh largest steel producer in the world within the next years as annual output is planned to reach above 50 million tons.