Worldsteel figures covered in a Tuesday report by the official IRNA news agency showed that Iran’s steel production had reached a total of 30.6 million metric tons (mt) last year, up 8% from 2021.
Global steel output dropped by 4.2% year on year in 2022 to reach 1.878 billion mt, showed the figures which also indicated that the global energy crunch and the war in Ukraine had seriously affected steel production in Europe last year.
Major European producers reported cuts to steel output by as much as 19% in 2022 while production in Ukraine contracted by more than 70% over the same period, according to the worldsteel figures.
The figures showed that Iran had remained the 10th largest steel producer in the world last year.
Iran has increasingly relied on hard currency revenues earned from its mining and metals exports since 2018 when the United States imposed sanctions on the country's oil exports.
Iran is now a net exporter of steel with around 7 million mt of annual shipments. It comes nearly a decade after the country reported imports of some 3.5 million mt per year.