Posted on 25 Nov 2024
The six countries in the Middle East and North Africa which report to worldsteel, excluding Qatar, posted a month-on-month increase in direct reduced iron production in October.
Versus the previous year, Libya and the United Arab Emirates recorded output declines.
Ten-month production of the six countries totalled 47.83 million tonnes, marking a 6.9% on-year increase over the same period last year and outpacing global DRI production growth across 13 countries, Kallanish notes from worldsteel data.
The six regional countries, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Libya and Egypt, accounted for 52.2% of reported world production in October. Iran drove the MENA production hike in October and the ten-month period.
MENA DRI output increased by 31.4% compared to September and by 31.3% year-on-year, reaching 6.7 million tonnes. Notably, Oman, with a production capacity of 1.8m t/year, and Algeria, with an installed capacity of 5m t/y, do not contribute to worldsteel statistics.
Iran saw DRI output increase by 43.2% on-month in October and by 44.2% on-year to 4.69mt. January-October production of 30.78mt grew 12.1% on-year from a year earlier's 27.47mt.
Saudi Arabia, the fourth-largest DRI producer globally, recorded 5.68mt of DRI output from January to October, representing a 0.2% decrease year-on-year. In October alone, production reached 618,215 tonnes, marking a 1.2% increase compared to the previous month and a 22.2% increase year-on-year.
Egypt recorded DRI production of 701,761t in October, up 26.5% on-month and 1.7% on-year. But ten-month production at 5.65mt was down 5% on-year.
Qatar's October DRI production reached 214,632t, down 5.9% on-month but an increase by 40.9% on-year, while ten-month production rose 8.3% on-year to 1.55mt.
Qatar Steel, the sole producer in the country, is actively engaged in the merchant DRI and hot-briquetted iron markets in 2024. However, due to low scrap prices in both the eastern and western hemispheres, particularly in the second half of the year, buyers’ target prices are approximately $20-30/tonne lower than the selling prices set by sellers. Therefore, not many transactions are being recorded in overseas markets.
UAE recorded 333,867t of DRI output in October, up 14.2% from September but down 1.4% year-on-year, taking ten-month DRI output down 4.9% on-year to 2.78mt.
Meanwhile, Libya produced 143,607t of DRI in October, an increase by 1.9% on-month but plummeting 13.5% on-year. January-October production was 1.36mt, up 8.6% on-year.
Source:Kallanish
