Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan.15 / Trend F.Milad /
Iran's crude steel production will reach 17.5 million tons in the current Iranian calendar year (which ends March 20), deputy director of the Trade Promotion Organisation of Iran said on Tuesday.
Iran's annual crude steel consumption currently stands at 25 million tons, the ISNA News Agency quoted Kioumars Fathollah Kermanshahi as saying.
Iran plans to reach a production capacity of 55 million tons by 2025, he added.
The deputy industry minister, Reza Fatemi-Amin, said on September 9, 2012 that Iran will no longer need to import steel products next year once the current steel production projects come on stream.
Fatemi-Amin also said that some seven million tons of crude steel is imported annually.
Iran will become one of the world's main steel exporters by March 2016, Ghazanfari said in May 2011.
Some 13.12 million tons of steel products were produced in the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year which began March 20, 2012.
The figure shows a 2.9 per cent increase in comparison to the same period last year.
Iran's steel products output stood at 1.42 million tons in the ninth Iranian calendar month (November 21 - December 21), which is 1.9 per cent more than the same time span of the previous year.
The Iranian Mines & Mining Industries Development & Renovation Organisation (IMIDRO) announced in December that four steel projects will come on stream in the first half of the next Iranian calendar year, to start March 20.
Once the projects come on stream some four million tons would be added to the country's sponge iron output capacity.
The projects will be completed at a cost of 458 million euros and 10.16 trillion rials (some $828.7 based on the official rate of dollar).