TEHRAN - Iran moved up three places in the global ranking of top steel producers to seventh position in November with a total output of 2.9 million metric tons (mt), according to figures by the World Steel Association.
Worldsteel figures by an industry source which showed that Iran’s November steel production had exceeded outputs reported by traditional rivals Turkey, Germany and Brazil.
Muhammad Saeidi said that Iran’s steel output had increased by 8.5% year on year in November, despite a 3.7% average decline reported in the global steel production.
He said European countries had started to place major orders for Iranian steel shipments amid the global crunch for the metal.
Iran was the 10th largest steel producer in the world before mid-summer when the country started to post historic rises in output.
Government figures released at the end of August showed Iran’s steel production had risen by 65% compared with August 2021.
Major steel producers in Europe have reported steep declines in output in November mainly because of a shoratge in natural gas supplies that has been caused by the war in Ukraine.
Steel production by European Union countries dropped by an average of 10.1% year on year in November as top supplier Germany reported a fall of 7.9% in output over the period.
Non-EU steel producers also reported an 11.2% drop in output in November compared to the same month last year while U.S. production fell 5.5% over the same period.
The Worldsteel data showed that November steel output in Japan and United States had reached 7.2 million mt and 6.4 million mt, respectively, down 10.7% and 10.5% from November 2021.
Other major steel producers in November were Russia with 5.6 million mt of output, South Korea with 4.8 million mt, Germany with 2.8 million mt, Türkiye with 2.4 million mt and Brazil with 2.6 million mt, all of them reporting declines of between 9% and 30% in monthly output compared with November last year.