Iran’s imports of finished products cut by 36%

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This represents a year-on-year reduction of 36%, according to Rasoul Khalifeh Soltani, secretary of the Iranian Steel Producers Assn.

Imports of I-beams fell by 63% year-on-year, rebar imports by 33% and imports of flat products by 32%.

Imports of semi-finished products, primarily billet, fell by 8% to 2.8 million tonnes.

The price of steel in the local Iranian market was lower than in global markets, making imports unprofitable, Khalifeh Soltani said.

Iran produced about 13 million tonnes of crude steel and 16 million tonnes of finished products over the 11-month period. Those figures are year-on-year increases of 7% and 2% respectively, Khalifeh Soltani added.

Iran produced 1.8 million tonnes of I-beam (down by 9%), 5.2 million tonnes of rebar (down by 11%) and 6.7 million tonnes of flat products (up by 13%) over the period.

Iran has a short-term target to reach capacity of 30 million tpy of crude steel production by 2015, and a longer term target of 55 million tpy by 2025.