ISPA: Iran exported 4.8m tons of steel ingots last year

Iran exported 4.89 million tons of steel ingots in the year to March 2019, of which 67 percent were sent to target markets in the form of billets and blooms, according to figures by the Iranian Steel Producers Association (ISPA).

ISPA statistics show that in this period, 3.31 million tons of steel billets and blooms were exported and overseas sales of steel slabs stood at 1.58 million tons, IRNA wrote.

Iran exported 6.87 million tons of raw steel in the year to March 2018, which was 29 percent higher than overseas sales of the same product in the year ending March 2019.

World Steel Association (WSA) recently announced that global raw steel production witnessed a 4.5 percent growth in the first three months of 2019, compared to the same period last year.

In this period, Iran ranked first among steel producers in terms of achieving the highest three-month growth rate, which was 7.1 percent.

According to WSA, global steel production by 64 countries stood at 444.11 million tons. In the same time period in 2018, the figure amounted to 425.06 million tons.

During January-March, 2019, Iran produced 6.22 million tons of raw steel.

In addition, ISPA figures show that Iran exported 2.98 million tons of steel products in the year to March 2019, indicating an 84 percent increase year-on-year. In the year to March 2018, the country had exported 1.62 million tons of the product.

The ISPA figures show that in the year to March 2019, Iranian producers changed their export approach shifting from overseas sales of raw steel and ingots toward selling steel products. Although in this period, their billet and bloom exports dropped year-on-year, they sold larger amounts of steel products, including iron girders, round bars, cold rolled steel sheets and galvanized sheets, compared to the same duration a year ago.

In the year ending March 2019, overseas sales of round bars had the highest share (55 percent) of Iran’s exports of steel products, as the country destined 1.65 million tons of the product to international markets. Hot rolled steel sheet was the second most exported steel product in the same time span with 622,000 tons of it sold in foreign markets. Iron girder (243,000 tons) ranked third in this regard.

WSA ranked the world’s top five steel producers in the first three months of 2019 as China (231.06 million tons), India (27.33 million tons), Japan (24.97 million tons), the US (22.22 million tons) and South Korea (18.1 million tons).

source: Iran Daily