Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 4
Trend:
Direct reduced iron (DRI) output in Iran witnessed an increase by 49 percent in January - July 2018, according to the latest data released by the World Steel Association.
Iranian DRI production stood at 15.28 million tons in the 7-month period, compared to 10.256 million of output in the first seven months of 2017.
Direct reduced iron, also called sponge iron, is produced from the direct reduction of iron ore (in the form of lumps, pellets, or fines) to iron by a reducing gas or elemental carbon produced from natural gas or coal. Sponge iron is not useful by itself, but can be processed to create wrought iron.
Iran’s sponge iron output amounted to 2.02 million tons in July 2018, 41.2 percent more year-on-year.
Iran was the world’s second sponge Iron producer after India which produced 17.276 million tons of DRI in January - July 2018.
The country’s total sponge iron output reached 20.55 million tons in 2017.
According to the World Steel Association, 48.785 million tons of sponge iron was produced by 12 countries in 2018, 17.84 percent more year-on-year.
The 12 countries included in the report accounted for approximately 85 percent of total world sponge iron production.
The report also said that more than 717.8 million tones of blast furnace iron was produced globally in the first seven months of 2018.
Iran’s share from the output was 1.4 million tons, 8.2 percent more year-on-year.
China was the biggest blast furnace iron producer in the world in January-July 2018 with about 441.8 million tons of production, followed by Japan (45.5 million tons), India (41.5 million tons), South Korea (27.2 million tons), Russia (30.4 million tons), Germany (17.8 million tons), Brazil (16.2 million tons) and the US (13.93 million tons).