Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.6/ Trend F.Milad/
Due to the implementation of sponge iron manufacturing unit of the Mobarakeh Steel Company, Iran's sponge iron production capacity increased by 1.5 million tons, the chairman of Iranian Mines & Mining Industries Development & Renovation Organisation (Imidro) Fereydoon Ahmadi said on Tuesday.
"Once the sponge iron manufacturing unit of Saba steel factory comes on stream about one million tons would be added to the nation's annual sponge iron output capacity," the IRNA News Agency quoted Ahmadi as saying.
Direct-reduced iron (DRI), also called sponge iron, is produced from direct reduction of iron ore (in the form of lumps, pellets or fines) by a reducing gas produced from natural gas or coal.
The reducing gas is a mixture majority of hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO) which acts as reducing agent. This process of directly reducing the iron ore in solid form by reducing gases is called direct reduction.
An official with the Iran Iron Sellers Union said on Tuesday The price of iron ore products has decreased by 15 percent in the past two weeks.
The IRIB News Agency quoted Mohammad Sadegh Chitsaz as saying that the price of steel ore products has also faced up to 30 percent decrease in the past two months.
Iran exported over 571 million dollars worth of aluminum, steel and iron ore products in the first six months of current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 20.
Iran's steel products exports exceeded over 307 million dollars in the mentioned period, showing a 14 percent rise in the terms of value and a 15 percent rise in the terms of volume, the IRIB News Agency reported on October 12.
Based on the report, iron ore exports value also stood at 3.77 million dollars. Some 633,000 tons of iron ore have been exported in the mentioned time span.
Iran produced some 7.5 million tons of crude steel during the first half of the current Iranian calendar year.
Iran will no longer need to import steel products next year once the underway steel production projects come on stream, the deputy industry minister Reza Fatemi-Amin said on September 9.
Fatemi-Amin told IRNA that some 7 million tons of crude steel is imported annually.
On September 4, Industry, Mine, and Trade Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari said that a number of steel projects, with the total output of 12 million tons.
Iran will become one of the world's main steel exporters by March 2016, Ghazanfari said in May 2011.