Iran Starts Going Independent in Railway Production by Degasification of VD Steel

“Production of the needed ingot to produce different types of railways in the country, including (U33), (UIC54), (U49) and (UIC60) has been made possible at Isfahan Steel Company by setting up a unit to degasify the VD steel, which means that all railway production phases could now be done fully domestically,” Managing-Director of Isfahan Steel Company Yazdizadeh wrote in a letter late last month.

He added that imported ingots were so far used to produce U33 and UIC60 railways in Isfahan Steel Company but the VD unit will pave the way for indigenized manufacturing of the product based on relevant standards, as exports of metal ignots including steel products, have come under the US sanctions recently.

On August 7, the government of the United States re-imposed its economic sanctions against Iran, with the steel trade being one of the industry sectors to be directly affected.

The sanctions were intended to prohibit states and companies which deal with the US from trading with Iran in any steel products, including semi-finished and finished steel.

They were also intended to prevent Iran from using the US currency, and to throttle the trade of such metals and minerals as gold, aluminum, coal and graphite to the Middle Eastern country, and to prohibit sales of cars and aircraft.

The lifting of an earlier regime of similar international sanctions in 2015 allowed Iran to become one of the world’s major steel exporters.

In the latest Iranian year, which ended on March 20, the country exported 7.4 million tons of semi-finished and finished steel products, and registered 39% growth year-on-year, according to the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO).

Within this total, exports of semi-finished steel products such as billet and slab accounted for 6.87 million tons, an increase of 84% year-on-year.

Southeast Asia (Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines) and the Middle East-North Africa region (the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Egypt), were the major outlets for Iranian steel.