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Iran Metals Report Q4 2011
Business Monitor International, Sep 2011, Pages: 49
Iran’s crude steel output is lagging behind the rate of capacity growth, leading to increasing levels of surplus capacity that are undermining the sector’s profitability, according to this latest Iran Metals Report from BMI.
In the first seven months of the 2011 calendar year, Iranian crude steel output grew 12.0% year-on-year (y-o-y) to 7.61mn tonnes, continuing the strong growth seen in the previous year. Output is being bolstered by rapid capacity expansion. The performance across the steel industry was varied. Khuzestan Steel produced 1.15mn tonnes of semi-finished steel in the first four months of the 2011/12 Iranian year (from March 20), an increase of 20% y-o-y. Iranian National Steel Industrial Group (INSIG) produced 108,000 tonnes of billet and 462,000 tonnes of finished steel products (rebar, I-beam and pipes) over the same period, up 22% and 16% y-o-y respectively. Khorasan Steel produced 230,000 tonnes of steel billet (up 22% y-o-y) and 232,000 tonnes of rebar (up 15% y-o-y). Iran Alloy Steel produced 92,000 tonnes of steel billet (up 6% y-o-y) and 89,000 tonnes of finished steel products (no change). Mobarakeh Steel subsidiary Saba Steel Plant produced 170,000 tonnes of thin slab and 170,000 tonnes of HRC in the first three months of the current Iranian year, both unchanged compared with the previous year.
The Bonab Steel Complex reached a crude steel output capacity of 1.5mn tpa when its new 500,000tpa meltshop came onstream in mid-2011; it also has a rolling capacity of 3.5mn tpa. Esfahan Steel began recommissioning an 800,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) blast furnace in Q311 following an investment of IRR300bn (US$28mn). Meanwhile, the production expansion project of Iranian steelmaker Iran Alloy Steel was over 70% completed by mid-2011 and is expected to be fully completed by June 2012. The project involves the addition of a third EAF as well as some other equipment and will raise output capacity of Iran Alloy Steel to 350,000tpa. Construction of the Oghlid Steel plant formally started in June 2011. The plant is expected to have capacities of 1.1mn tpa of pellets, 800,000tpa of sponge iron and 1.5mn tpa of steel billet. The project is expected to be completed by 2014 at a cost of about IRR8.3trn (US$700mn).
Monthly crude output growth rates are sluggish and are not set to move much beyond 1.1mn tonnes, despite the additional capacity that came onstream in recent months. As such, BMI expects total output of 13.19mn tonnes in 2011, an increase of 10% y-o-y and a downward revision from the 12% growth we forecast in the previous quarter. Steel output was just under 12mn tonnes in 2010, utilising just 60% of capacity and for the 2010/11 Iranian year, which runs from 20 March, reported output was 12.43mn tonnes (up 14%), which was well below the 14mn tonnes predicted by the government. We doubt that Iran will meet Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organisation (Imidro)’s target of 15mn tonnes in FY2011/12. Moreover, we expect output to reach around 19mn tonnes in 2015, a downward revision from the 20mn tonnes we forecast in the previous quarter, which would represent a two-thirds increase over 2010 levels, but would still mean that the country’s steel industry was operating at less than half capacity if current projects are commissioned on schedule. Low capacity utilisation will undermine the profitability of the Iranian steel industry as well as potential market instability.
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