Turkey 1st, Iran 2nd largest steel producers in the Middle East

Iran remains 2nd largest steel producer after Turkey in the Middle East. According to the statistics published by the World Steel Association (World Steel), Iran has been the second steel producer of Middle East during the 8 months of 2009 after Turkey. Turkey’s crude steel production reached to 16,402,000 tons during the eight months of 2009 and Iran produced 7,367,000 tons of steel during the same period. But Turkey’s crude steel production decreased 14.9 percent during the 8 months of 2009 comparing to the same period of last year while Iran’s crude steel production increased 12.8 percent during the same period. Iran is still the second producer with a wide gap from Turkey. Saudi Arabia is also one of the major steel producers in the Middle East region which produced 3,024,000 tons of crude steel during the 8 months of 2009. Its production decreased 7.8 percent YoY. Crude steel production of Qatar decreased 33.3 percent and reached to 678,000 tons during the same period. Crude steel production of Egypt reached to 3,613,000 tons during the 8 months of 2009. Therefore this African country is the 3rd biggest steel producer of Middle East. Crude steel production has been decreased in all Middle Eastern countries except Iran in this year. Iran produced some 10mil tons of crude steel and ranked 19th in the world and 2nd in Middle East last year.