Iran produced 1.25 million tons of crude steel last month (June) showing a 2 percent increase as compared with the corresponding period in the last year, the World Steel Association (WSA) said in its latest report.
Iran produced 7.327 million tons of steel in the first six months of 2013, WSA report added.
Earlier this year, the WSA announced that Iran has become the largest steel producer in the Middle East and North Africa.
Iran produced 14.463 million tons of crude steel in 2012, and was named the first largest producer of crude steel in the Middle-East and North Africa, the WSA report said.
The country's main steel mills are located in Isfahan and Khuzestan provinces.
Iran has risen its steel production output by more than 9 percent, the WSA announced in January, adding that the country is now the world's 15th steel producer.
Among 62 world major steel producers, Iran jumped two steps higher and became the world's 15th steel producer in 2012, the report said. Iran ranked above UK, Spain and Canada.
In December, Managing-Director of Mobarakeh Steel Company Mohammad Massoud Sameenejad also announced that Iran “is the biggest steel producer in the Middle East and North Africa”
“The WSA has named Iran as the biggest producer of steel in the Middle-East and North Africa in the same period,” Sameenejad said.
Elaborating on his company’s share in Iran’s steel production, he said that Mobarakeh Steel Company produced 46 percent of Iran's steel output in the first 10 months of 2012.
Last year, an Iranian official announced that the production of steel in Iran has grown 5 million tons in the past two years despite the harsh sanctions imposed by the West against the country.
“Despite the intensified sanctions during the last two years, the capacity of Iran's steel production has increased 5mln tons and we will be completely self-sufficient in the steel industry in the next three years,” Vice-President of Iran's Steel Association Hamidreza Taherizadeh told FNA in July 2012.
