Iran's Shadegan Steel started hot commissioning at a new direct reduced iron module Sunday, the country's state mines and metals holding company Imidro said Thursday.
Shadegan plans to complete five other modules at various locations in Iran by March 2018, Imidro chairman Mehdi Karbasian said in a statement on the holding company's website.
Shadegan is currently producing 800,000 mt/year of DRI or sponge iron.
The company is also building an EAF-based steelmaking plant that is slated for completion by May 2018, an Imidro source said. The project's capacity will be 4 million mt/year after a second phase, the source added.
That plant is located in the country's southwest, close to Iraq, and will be able to meet some of Iraq's futures crude steel demand, he said.
The new projects will add a combined 4.8 million mt/year of sponge iron capacity to Iran's current nominal capacity of 17.3 million mt/year by December.
Shadegan's DRI module will use a domestic Iranian DR technology called PERED or Persian Reduction, invented and patented by MME Co., an Iranian engineering company registered in Germany, according to the Imidro website.
This is the first DRI module to use the technology. Three of the projects under construction will also use PERED technology, according to the website.
Shadegan Steel is owned 65% by Khouzestan Steel Co., Iran's second biggest steel producer, and 45% by Imidro.
